Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Keith Addison wrote: A Natural History of Peace By Robert M. Sapolsky From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2006 What an interesting article! Thanks, Keith! You're welcome Robert, I'm glad you liked it. The link worked fine for me, by the way. Here's another version, from the NYT 18 months ago: http://ranprieur.com/crash/baboons.html No Time for Bullies: Baboons Retool Their Culture It appears that what we need is a selective bottleneck to eliminate the knuckle draggers from among us and leave the more docile humans behind . . . Now, I've read about that somewhere . . . Leave them in front. Left Behind, aarghh! LOL! I wouldn't say more docile though, after all a docile populace is the ideal of our noble leaders, uh, rulers, and captains of industry and commerce, it makes it so much easier to manufacture our consent. Make it less aggressive rather. Aggressive has become a positive word these days, for how you go about your sales campaign or whatever. It's not positive, it's a response based on fear. I believe we had such a selective bottleneck when the little man-apes left the trees. Two versions of what happened. Robert Broom and Raymond Dart and others built up a whole story working with the fossil remains at the Sterkfontein Caves near Johannesburg in South Africa. They'd found the skull of a young female autralopithecine hominid. Her jaw was broken in two places and they concluded this is what had killed her because the breaks hadn't begun to knit. They also found the fossilised thigh-bone of a large antelope nearby, the essential caveman's club, and indeed the large joint at the end neatly fitted the two breaks in the jawbone - the murder weapon, Watson: these cavemen killed their own children. This was the view in the 50s and 60s and it became a vital part of the foundation for playwright Robert Ardrey's and others' claims that we're basically violent, Killer Apes, and, following from that, the resurgence of the Victorian idea that not only is violence part our nature but it's there for good reason - the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest, might is right. Healthy competition, enlightened self-interest, positive aggression. Milton Friedmann, trickle-down Reaganomics, neo-liberalism. Invading other people's countries and killing them for their own good. Actually what you find in the jungle or in any forest if you have the eyes to see it is, indeed, competition, but it's only about 5% of what happens, just about everything else is symbiotic - cooperative, not competitive. Within such a context competition is healthy, or rather it's a part of something that's healthy, but given free reign on its own (or free markets) it's anything but healthy, it easily becomes sociopathic. But then that's the nature of the Killer Ape, no? Man is a predator with an instinct to kill and a genetic cultural affinity for the weapon. - Ardrey. No. We tend to find what we set out to find, and the facts fit so neatly and obligingly when you leave everything else out. It turns out cavemen didn't live in caves, they were terrified of caves because caves was where big nasty cats lived that ate little cavemen, catching them out on the plains and dragging them back to their lairs to eat them, except the bones. Baboons and antelopes too, but mainly primates. These were false sabre-tooth tigers, Dino felis cats, nocturnal killers. Better science has shown that the breaks in the jaw of the girl-ape's skull were made by Dino felis teeth, not a caveman's club. Dino felis, the false saber-toothed cat, was a specialist primate killer, picking off hominids and baboons and then dragging them back to its cave lair, says paleontologist Bob Brain, who pioneered the investigation into hominid predators, in The Hunters or the Hunted?. The hominids faced two major problems on the plains, Dino felis was one, the other was food: gathering was okay but hunting was hard when you had no natural weapons and just about everything else could run faster than you. In both cases survival was a group effort, depending on cooperation. Within that context no doubt aggression and competition played a role, but a subordinate one, 5% of the whole perhaps. Then we conquered the fearsome Fire God and made him our servant, an utterly extraordinary event. Definitely a cooperative venture! Armed with fire we conquered our terror of the dark and conquered the big cats too, roughly a million years ago. I think it's this that distinguishes us from other creatures, if anything. Quite a few other animals make and use tools, and I don't think we have a sole franchise on talking, we're just really bad at foreign languages, nor on intelligence. But we're the only ones who use fire, and at the time we conquered it we weren't any brighter than anyone else, no smarter than a baboon. By contrast, the baboons Sapolsky's talking about certainly know about using tools and
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Hello Robert Keith Addison wrote: (Uberpatriots and Jingoism) Rather noticeable, yes. Different forums have different cultures. But I'm baffled by people who can't get along here. This is a VERY diverse place, yet among the regular contributors there seems to be a degree of respect that I seldom find elsewhere. I agree, but in some of the newcomers who take no notice of anything and won't adapt and want it all their own way it stirs up a hatred and fury that I seldom find elsewhere too. Well, so what, as long as they do it somewhere else. (Reading and understanding) I'm sure he's proof against it, we've seen it time and again. Some of these people will flatly deny what they said yesterday, though it's there on public record for all to see. All but them, if they don't want to see it. They have impregnable protective screens and they're memory editors. Yes, I remember a discussion we had along these lines in the past. It seems that being right is more important than being honest. The children with whom I work often suffer from a similar problem. They believe that the smart kids are the ones who don't need education and always get the answers right. Where does this idea come from? Was it there 30 years ago? Or at least to this extent? It's an interesting characteristic to observe, Yes it is, but in a cul-de-sac sort of way, it doesn't go anywhere. It'd be really interesting if only it weren't so boring. but I don't appreciate the mentality you've described above being used on me, and given the history of this forum, I'm confident most others feel the same. I'm sure they do. (Todd may be the exception, but then, Todd IS exceptional!) :-) Todd helps the planet go round, I don't think it would work so well without him. I definitely don't think that all people who hold these or similar views and persuasions behave that way, just a minority, and the other side is not without it's knee-jerk nutters either. But this guy is violent, he's too far gone, and he's far from alone. I think it's a matter of personal integrity, and people like this don't really have any. Hmm. . . You remain far more optimistic about human nature than I. Living here in North America, having witnessed all manner of hatreds throughout my life, I think the attitude we're talking about here is very common. I deal with this kind of lunacy all the time. I'm not playing whose is bigger Robert, but I'm sure it's no worse than apartheid South Africa in the 60s and 70s. You can find it just about anywhere, but it's not the only thing that's there to be found. You wouldn't guess where I learned my most important lesson about human nature and why it's something to be optimistic about. It was in Soweto in the late 60s, one of the worst places in the world. Just over a million people were living there then; I worked for the Soweto newspaper and I remember writing a Monday-morning headline that there'd been 72 murders there that weekend. I wrote a chilling article about all the terrible ways to die that could waylay any Sowetan trying to get through their normal day. But those people living in that cauldron taught me what it is to be human, and I'll never forget it. Integrity doesn't necessarily go with one set of views and persuasions and not another. If I'm giving you that impression, I'm communicating badly. You weren't giving me that impression, it was a general comment, not directed at you. It seems, however, that flock mentality is a pervasive problem among neo-cons in the United States right now. I used to wonder what happened to the Republican party, but as I've looked into this more carefully, I've come to the conclusion that I had my own set of delusions about sweetness and light under which my mind operated. There HAS been a paradigm shift in mentality among the majority of people who call themselves conservative in the United States. That shift, however, has left me behind. It's not at all conservative, it's radical, and I keep seeing conservative Republicans saying that these days. Many of them seem to be opting out. I really don't care whether people are so-called right-wing or left-wing or whatever race or religion, just as long as they're honest. I think nearly everyone is honest at heart, but it gets bent, often by outside forces, not by volition. On this we disagree, Keith. It's just not been my experience. This is also a general observation, not aimed at anyone in particular. It's quite striking how North Americans especially seem to be deaf to the massive onslaught of massaged messages, managed opinions, desires and fears and manufactured feelings with which they're constantly being bombarded. You seldom find anyone who's prepared to acknowledge it, and especially not that it might apply to them. It's at its most intense in North America. Some non-Americans have been saying maybe it's
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Leave them in front. Left Behind, aarghh! LOL! I wouldn't say more docile though, after all a docile populace is the ideal of our noble leaders, uh, rulers, and captains of industry and commerce, it makes it so much easier to manufacture our consent. Make it less aggressive rather. Aggressive has become a positive word these days, for how you go about your sales campaign or whatever. It's not positive, it's a response based on fear. Three authors come to my mind in this context whose writings I enjoyed. One is of course good old Desmond Morris. His trilogy The Naked Ape, The Human Zoo, and Intimate Behavior, and his *-watching series are quite entertaining. The Human Zoo's description of modern man essentially as a neurotic caged animal is compelling. Caveat: Some of my anthropology-literate friends find Morris' work to be more of popular writing than serious analysis. More recently, I find Daniel Quinn's Ishmael series of books and Beyond Civilization very nice and readable. His description of the aggressive takers (and of the givers) seems natural. His conjectures about certain historical turning points are interesting. For a glimpse of mathematical analysis (primarily based upon game theory and quite readable for non-mathematicians) of the emergence of cooperation as a behavioral model amongst populations, Robert Axelrod's The Evolution of Cooperation and The Complexity of Cooperation are excellent readings. Chandan ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Keith, now the whole thing again but this time w/ MLA citations, plz. J/k, of course. For the Foreign Affairs piece? Sorry, you'll have to take that up with them. If you want to discuss the content maybe I'd do that, might not find the time though, it's few right now. Best Keith ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Keith Addison wrote: A Natural History of Peace By Robert M. Sapolsky From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2006 What an interesting article! Thanks, Keith! It appears that what we need is a selective bottleneck to eliminate the knuckle draggers from among us and leave the more docile humans behind . . . Now, I've read about that somewhere . . . robert luis rabello The Edge of Justice Adventure for Your Mind http://www.newadventure.ca Ranger Supercharger Project Page http://www.members.shaw.ca/rabello/ ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Hi Robert Keith Addison wrote: Anyway, I guess this is the kind of person you'd be voting against, and you'd probably lose, yet again. This guy just applied to join the list: Which sounds like he doesn't vote for the Oil Party, but it turns out he does. Before he got accepted he had a look at some of the recent stuff in the list archives and got cross about it: Jingoism rears its very ugly head again! From what I saw on the first page, most of the forum is bashing bush and the military. I find all of this unpatriotic and harmful to the US. Is this all that these people have in their life? I joined this to learn about biofuel, not all of this $#!^. What's really strange about this, is that in some other forums to which I have subscribed over the years, off-topic commentary is roundly condemned, yet every once in awhile some uberpatriot sneaks a shot over the bow. It's often couched in the language of independence, as if that's a goal reasonably and appropriately achieved in this era, but the underlying attitude of I deserve whatever I want and I don't want to hear any criticism from you is part of the reason the world finds itself in its current mess. Interestingly, these kinds of remarks don't draw the same kind of scathing rebuke often leveled at people around here, people who write with far greater depth and intellect. Rather noticeable, yes. Different forums have different cultures. It is amazing what you people think. All you do is complain, bitch and moan, yet offer no solutions. A little bit of reading and understanding on the part of this person would have helped, don't you agree? I'm sure he's proof against it, we've seen it time and again. Some of these people will flatly deny what they said yesterday, though it's there on public record for all to see. All but them, if they don't want to see it. They have impregnable protective screens and they're memory editors. I definitely don't think that all people who hold these or similar views and persuasions behave that way, just a minority, and the other side is not without it's knee-jerk nutters either. But this guy is violent, he's too far gone, and he's far from alone. I think it's a matter of personal integrity, and people like this don't really have any. Like this: http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/msg30705.html Integrity doesn't necessarily go with one set of views and persuasions and not another. I really don't care whether people are so-called right-wing or left-wing or whatever race or religion, just as long as they're honest. I think nearly everyone is honest at heart, but it gets bent, often by outside forces, not by volition. Fear and hatred are whipped up quite deliberately and expertly maintained. It's very difficult to reason with someone shut inside a laager mentality, but it's possible - until they turn their fear and hatred on you. By the way, don't you think this is quite interesting? Merriam-Webster Online Based on your online lookups, the #1 Word of the Year for 2005 was: 1. integrity 2. refugee 3. contempt 4. filibuster 5. insipid 6. tsunami 7. pandemic 8. conclave 9. levee 10. inept http://www.m-w.com/info/05words.htm For one thing, not that it matters very much but Internet spelling is generally bad, even in searches - are they managing to spell it right because they're copying and pasting from somewhere else? From the online print media perhaps? I mean, if you can spell integrity right would you need to look it up? :-/ Hm, doesn't include jingoism, what a surprise. Dunno why he'd thought he'd joined, all he did was apply (spike!). He wants to kill us, we should all be put to death by having our heads cut off with a dull kitchen knife. I guess that's what the glorious military's for, to kill people Americans think are threatening them, or threatening their cherished notions perhaps. Seems he fancies a bit of good old torture on the side too while he's at it. Thank God, he says. I suppose he's a Christian, or a so-called Christian, the God is hate type of Christian, ie not a Christian at all. I'm really glad you make this distinction. You can tell a tree by examining its fruit, and the scriptures are QUITE clear that no one who harbors hatred in his heart genuinely loves God. And I think all societies whether Christian or not have known that for a long time. In fact I don't think that people who respond to dissenting views with such outright hatred are real Americans at all, no matter where they were born. But they're the ones who call the shots, for 25 years already. Honestly, Keith, sometimes you create the impression that all was sweetness and light over here before Mr. Reagan came into office. Not at all Robert. IMHO what's very important to note is that it's over the last 25-30 years that neo-liberal economics has held sway, and that both the neocons and the far-right
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
As a member of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Church, http://www.venganza.org/ I am shocked, appalled and outraged at [ ] and [ ]. All I can say is my God is the one true God, and no set of tongs, pasta bowl nor meatballs will save you when he/she/it decides to return to earth in a blaze of marinara. What you infidels don't seem to realize is that sometimes it is necessary to bake nonbelievers at 350 degrees for hour, then sprinkle them with Parmasean and set aside to cool to save them. We are on the move and on the March. We have organizing to make it unconstitutional to eat spaghetti with anything but a fork. You may laugh, but remember, they laughed at Jerry Lewis, and now he's an icon in France. May you be touched by His noodly appendage -Mike. Keith Addison wrote: Hi Robert Keith Addison wrote: Anyway, I guess this is the kind of person you'd be voting against, and you'd probably lose, yet again. This guy just applied to join the list: Which sounds like he doesn't vote for the Oil Party, but it turns out he does. Before he got accepted he had a look at some of the recent stuff in the list archives and got cross about it: Jingoism rears its very ugly head again! From what I saw on the first page, most of the forum is bashing bush and the military. I find all of this unpatriotic and harmful to the US. Is this all that these people have in their life? I joined this to learn about biofuel, not all of this $#!^. What's really strange about this, is that in some other forums to which I have subscribed over the years, off-topic commentary is roundly condemned, yet every once in awhile some uberpatriot sneaks a shot over the bow. It's often couched in the language of independence, as if that's a goal reasonably and appropriately achieved in this era, but the underlying attitude of I deserve whatever I want and I don't want to hear any criticism from you is part of the reason the world finds itself in its current mess. Interestingly, these kinds of remarks don't draw the same kind of scathing rebuke often leveled at people around here, people who write with far greater depth and intellect. Rather noticeable, yes. Different forums have different cultures. It is amazing what you people think. All you do is complain, bitch and moan, yet offer no solutions. A little bit of reading and understanding on the part of this person would have helped, don't you agree? I'm sure he's proof against it, we've seen it time and again. Some of these people will flatly deny what they said yesterday, though it's there on public record for all to see. All but them, if they don't want to see it. They have impregnable protective screens and they're memory editors. I definitely don't think that all people who hold these or similar views and persuasions behave that way, just a minority, and the other side is not without it's knee-jerk nutters either. But this guy is violent, he's too far gone, and he's far from alone. I think it's a matter of personal integrity, and people like this don't really have any. Like this: http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/msg30705.html Integrity doesn't necessarily go with one set of views and persuasions and not another. I really don't care whether people are so-called right-wing or left-wing or whatever race or religion, just as long as they're honest. I think nearly everyone is honest at heart, but it gets bent, often by outside forces, not by volition. Fear and hatred are whipped up quite deliberately and expertly maintained. It's very difficult to reason with someone shut inside a laager mentality, but it's possible - until they turn their fear and hatred on you. By the way, don't you think this is quite interesting? Merriam-Webster Online Based on your online lookups, the #1 Word of the Year for 2005 was: 1. integrity 2. refugee 3. contempt 4. filibuster 5. insipid 6. tsunami 7. pandemic 8. conclave 9. levee 10. inept http://www.m-w.com/info/05words.htm For one thing, not that it matters very much but Internet spelling is generally bad, even in searches - are they managing to spell it right because they're copying and pasting from somewhere else? From the online print media perhaps? I mean, if you can spell integrity right would you need to look it up? :-/ Hm, doesn't include jingoism, what a surprise. Dunno why he'd thought he'd joined, all he did was apply (spike!). He wants to kill us, we should all be put to death by having our heads cut off with a dull kitchen knife. I guess that's what the glorious military's for, to kill people Americans think are threatening them, or threatening their cherished notions perhaps. Seems he fancies a bit of good old torture on the side too while he's at it. Thank God, he says. I suppose he's a Christian, or a so-called Christian, the God is hate type of Christian,
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Stop bashing Jingo. I don't care what you say, but just leave The Beatles out of it. Maybe he wasn't the best-looking Beatle but to say he has a very ugly head is plain mean. robert luis rabello wrote: Keith Addison wrote: Anyway, I guess this is the kind of person you'd be voting against, and you'd probably lose, yet again. This guy just applied to join the list: Which sounds like he doesn't vote for the Oil Party, but it turns out he does. Before he got accepted he had a look at some of the recent stuff in the list archives and got cross about it: Jingoism rears its very ugly head again! From what I saw on the first page, most of the forum is bashing bush and the military. I find all of this unpatriotic and harmful to the US. Is this all that these people have in their life? I joined this to learn about biofuel, not all of this $#!^. What's really strange about this, is that in some other forums to which I have subscribed over the years, off-topic commentary is roundly condemned, yet every once in awhile some uberpatriot sneaks a shot over the bow. It's often couched in the language of independence, as if that's a goal reasonably and appropriately achieved in this era, but the underlying attitude of I deserve whatever I want and I don't want to hear any criticism from you is part of the reason the world finds itself in its current mess. Interestingly, these kinds of remarks don't draw the same kind of scathing rebuke often leveled at people around here, people who write with far greater depth and intellect. It is amazing what you people think. All you do is complain, bitch and moan, yet offer no solutions. A little bit of reading and understanding on the part of this person would have helped, don't you agree? Dunno why he'd thought he'd joined, all he did was apply (spike!). He wants to kill us, we should all be put to death by having our heads cut off with a dull kitchen knife. I guess that's what the glorious military's for, to kill people Americans think are threatening them, or threatening their cherished notions perhaps. Seems he fancies a bit of good old torture on the side too while he's at it. Thank God, he says. I suppose he's a Christian, or a so-called Christian, the God is hate type of Christian, ie not a Christian at all. I'm really glad you make this distinction. You can tell a tree by examining its fruit, and the scriptures are QUITE clear that no one who harbors hatred in his heart genuinely loves God. In fact I don't think that people who respond to dissenting views with such outright hatred are real Americans at all, no matter where they were born. But they're the ones who call the shots, for 25 years already. Honestly, Keith, sometimes you create the impression that all was sweetness and light over here before Mr. Reagan came into office. I'm old enough to remember the Watts Riots and imagery of people being sprayed with fire truck hoses in the streets. The attitudes that lead to the kinds of abuses we've discussed in this forum are as old as humanity itself. I just watched a National Geographic special on chimpanzees and bonobos, and many of the same aggressive behaviors that we decry in ourselves exist in the larger subspecies of ape. (Bonobos apparently solve their problems with sex, but let's NOT go there!) Given our genetic similarity to these creatures, it's likely that the attitudes underlying jingoism and other forms of superiority that we project are very old problems that were present in our ancestors before humanity branched off from the great apes. Funny how they always want to kill people, he's not the first. A brain-damaged prat calling himself AirCooled, Cary S. Campbell from South Florida, who got the auto-boot for the same reason about a month ago, sent a mindless offlist message titled The End of the OPEN Forum or THE DECLINE AND EVENTUAL FALL OF THE BIOFUEL MAILING LIST Oh yeah, I got that one. I'm frequently the target of posts from confused, former list members baffled by their ejection from this forum. (Some people seem to think I'm reasonable, and that I hold sway around here and can get them reinstated! I've never been the Alpha Male type.) One confused soul tried to prove from the Bible that God intended George Bush to win the election so that a Christian agenda could be imposed upon the world. If that's the case (and I see no evidence that it is), why would God have to resort to dishonesty in order to pull that off? He persisted in arguing with me about this for two or three e-mails, then realized I wasn't going to give in and simply vanished. These people are sane, eh? They live with their families in their neighbourhoods and go to their jobs and to church on Sundays and fantasise about shooting people, cutting their
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Uh, are those baked nonbelievers organic or just USDA certified? As a member of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Church, http://www.venganza.org/ I am shocked, appalled and outraged at [ ] and [ ]. All I can say is my God is the one true God, and no set of tongs, pasta bowl nor meatballs will save you when he/she/it decides to return to earth in a blaze of marinara. I don't mean any disrespect, but he looks a lot like your worms, you didn't get the piccies mixed up did you? Anyway, please keep your noodly appendage to yourself, this is a respectable family list you know. Keith What you infidels don't seem to realize is that sometimes it is necessary to bake nonbelievers at 350 degrees for hour, then sprinkle them with Parmasean and set aside to cool to save them. We are on the move and on the March. We have organizing to make it unconstitutional to eat spaghetti with anything but a fork. You may laugh, but remember, they laughed at Jerry Lewis, and now he's an icon in France. May you be touched by His noodly appendage -Mike. Keith Addison wrote: Hi Robert Keith Addison wrote: Anyway, I guess this is the kind of person you'd be voting against, and you'd probably lose, yet again. This guy just applied to join the list: Which sounds like he doesn't vote for the Oil Party, but it turns out he does. Before he got accepted he had a look at some of the recent stuff in the list archives and got cross about it: Jingoism rears its very ugly head again! snip ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
My girlfriend says that everyone associated w/ BD is certified, or should be... Keith Addison wrote: Uh, are those baked nonbelievers organic or just USDA certified? As a member of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Church, http://www.venganza.org/ I am shocked, appalled and outraged at [ ] and [ ]. All I can say is my God is the one true God, and no set of tongs, pasta bowl nor meatballs will save you when he/she/it decides to return to earth in a blaze of marinara. I don't mean any disrespect, but he looks a lot like your worms, you didn't get the piccies mixed up did you? Anyway, please keep your noodly appendage to yourself, this is a respectable family list you know. Keith What you infidels don't seem to realize is that sometimes it is necessary to bake nonbelievers at 350 degrees for hour, then sprinkle them with Parmasean and set aside to cool to save them. We are on the move and on the March. We have organizing to make it unconstitutional to eat spaghetti with anything but a fork. You may laugh, but remember, they laughed at Jerry Lewis, and now he's an icon in France. May you be touched by His noodly appendage -Mike. Keith Addison wrote: Hi Robert Keith Addison wrote: Anyway, I guess this is the kind of person you'd be voting against, and you'd probably lose, yet again. This guy just applied to join the list: Which sounds like he doesn't vote for the Oil Party, but it turns out he does. Before he got accepted he had a look at some of the recent stuff in the list archives and got cross about it: Jingoism rears its very ugly head again! snip ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Keith Addison wrote: (Uberpatriots and Jingoism) Rather noticeable, yes. Different forums have different cultures. But I'm baffled by people who can't get along here. This is a VERY diverse place, yet among the regular contributors there seems to be a degree of respect that I seldom find elsewhere. (Reading and understanding) I'm sure he's proof against it, we've seen it time and again. Some of these people will flatly deny what they said yesterday, though it's there on public record for all to see. All but them, if they don't want to see it. They have impregnable protective screens and they're memory editors. Yes, I remember a discussion we had along these lines in the past. It seems that being right is more important than being honest. The children with whom I work often suffer from a similar problem. They believe that the smart kids are the ones who don't need education and always get the answers right. Where does this idea come from? It's an interesting characteristic to observe, but I don't appreciate the mentality you've described above being used on me, and given the history of this forum, I'm confident most others feel the same. (Todd may be the exception, but then, Todd IS exceptional!) I definitely don't think that all people who hold these or similar views and persuasions behave that way, just a minority, and the other side is not without it's knee-jerk nutters either. But this guy is violent, he's too far gone, and he's far from alone. I think it's a matter of personal integrity, and people like this don't really have any. Hmm. . . You remain far more optimistic about human nature than I. Living here in North America, having witnessed all manner of hatreds throughout my life, I think the attitude we're talking about here is very common. I deal with this kind of lunacy all the time. Integrity doesn't necessarily go with one set of views and persuasions and not another. If I'm giving you that impression, I'm communicating badly. It seems, however, that flock mentality is a pervasive problem among neo-cons in the United States right now. I used to wonder what happened to the Republican party, but as I've looked into this more carefully, I've come to the conclusion that I had my own set of delusions about sweetness and light under which my mind operated. There HAS been a paradigm shift in mentality among the majority of people who call themselves conservative in the United States. That shift, however, has left me behind. I really don't care whether people are so-called right-wing or left-wing or whatever race or religion, just as long as they're honest. I think nearly everyone is honest at heart, but it gets bent, often by outside forces, not by volition. On this we disagree, Keith. It's just not been my experience. By the way, don't you think this is quite interesting? Merriam-Webster Online Based on your online lookups, the #1 Word of the Year for 2005 was: 1. integrity 2. refugee 3. contempt 4. filibuster 5. insipid 6. tsunami 7. pandemic 8. conclave 9. levee 10. inept http://www.m-w.com/info/05words.htm Yes, very interesting. For one thing, not that it matters very much but Internet spelling is generally bad, even in searches - are they managing to spell it right because they're copying and pasting from somewhere else? From the online print media perhaps? I mean, if you can spell integrity right would you need to look it up? :-/ That thought was similar to mine. I asked my eldest son (who is 11) to define the words, and aside from insipid and filibuster, he did pretty well. Given that he's had very little formal schooling in English, since he's in a French Immersion program, his ability to define most of the words in that list underscores pretty weak language skills among the online population. Of course, we don't really know who was looking up those words, either. A vast number of non-native English speakers use the internet, so maybe the results can be explained by lack of experience with the language. Of course, it can be argued that in the political realm at least, the words integrity and inept are mutually exclusive! Hm, doesn't include jingoism, what a surprise. That's because nobody listens to me! (Sweetness and light) Not at all Robert. IMHO what's very important to note is that it's over the last 25-30 years that neo-liberal economics has held sway, and that both the neocons and the far-right Christians have been putting their programs into action, and that the use and sheer volume and effectiveness of spin and consent manufacturing has exploded, especially in the US, while media ownership and control have imploded, especially in the US. All these at the same time, following Watts and the late sixties-early seventies. It may have been a reaction to what
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
robert luis rabello wrote: Snip Surely there ARE some differences. I think George Orwell had it right (though his timing was off by a few years) and Josef Goebbels would be quite comfortable in the current administration. That wouldn't have been the case 40 years ago. Actually I would argue that Aldous Huxley was closer to the mark. It's easier to control people with soma than brute force. Keep them asleep and numbed with warm fuzzy patriotic feelings and mostly distracted with useless information, propaganda and flashy entertainment, and they will hand the reins over to you with gladness to do with as you please. Joe ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Joe Street wrote: Actually I would argue that Aldous Huxley was closer to the mark. It's easier to control people with soma than brute force. Keep them asleep and numbed with warm fuzzy patriotic feelings and mostly distracted with useless information, propaganda and flashy entertainment, and they will hand the reins over to you with gladness to do with as you please. The lines between Brave New World and 1984 have become blurred in my memory. This is what happens when you get old! robert luis rabello The Edge of Justice Adventure for Your Mind http://www.newadventure.ca Ranger Supercharger Project Page http://www.members.shaw.ca/rabello/ ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Good thing I'm not planning on getting old! robert luis rabello wrote: Joe Street wrote: Actually I would argue that Aldous Huxley was closer to the mark. It's easier to control people with soma than brute force. Keep them asleep and numbed with warm fuzzy patriotic feelings and mostly distracted with useless information, propaganda and flashy entertainment, and they will hand the reins over to you with gladness to do with as you please. The lines between "Brave New World" and "1984" have become blurred in my memory. This is what happens when you get old! robert luis rabello "The Edge of Justice" Adventure for Your Mind http://www.newadventure.ca Ranger Supercharger Project Page http://www.members.shaw.ca/rabello/ ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
hows this: George h w bush (don't worry,be happy...) is to brave new world as George bush (terror, terror, terror) is to 1984 robert luis rabello wrote: Joe Street wrote: Actually I would argue that Aldous Huxley was closer to the mark. It's easier to control people with soma than brute force. Keep them asleep and numbed with warm fuzzy patriotic feelings and mostly distracted with useless information, propaganda and flashy entertainment, and they will hand the reins over to you with gladness to do with as you please. The lines between Brave New World and 1984 have become blurred in my memory. This is what happens when you get old! robert luis rabello The Edge of Justice Adventure for Your Mind http://www.newadventure.ca Ranger Supercharger Project Page http://www.members.shaw.ca/rabello/ ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ -- Bob Allen http://ozarker.org/bob Science is what we have learned about how to keep from fooling ourselves — Richard Feynman ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Flashback. SAT's bob allen wrote: hows this: George h w bush (don't worry,be happy...) is to brave new world as George bush (terror, terror, terror) is to 1984 robert luis rabello wrote: Joe Street wrote: Actually I would argue that Aldous Huxley was closer to the mark. It's easier to control people with soma than brute force. Keep them asleep and numbed with warm fuzzy patriotic feelings and mostly distracted with useless information, propaganda and flashy entertainment, and they will hand the reins over to you with gladness to do with as you please. The lines between Brave New World and 1984 have become blurred in my memory. This is what happens when you get old! robert luis rabello The Edge of Justice Adventure for Your Mind http://www.newadventure.ca Ranger Supercharger Project Page http://www.members.shaw.ca/rabello/ ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Hello Robert snip Life for humans and pre-humans too has always been far more a cooperative venture. Yes, all abuses are old, but to ascribe to them a major and continuing role in our social development is a Victorian idea and it's quite easily debunked. It's yet another out-of-place idea that's gained more and more sway in the popular mind over the last 25-30 years, wonder why that might be (not!)? Ok, I think I'm not expressing my intent correctly. I'm not excusing deviant behavior, merely pointing out that it has its roots in very ancient patterns. We are free to control our urges and impulses, and for the most part, the role of socialization requires such restraint. Please have a read of this, you'll enjoy it: http://snipurl.com/o8fg Foreign Affairs A Natural History of Peace By Robert M. Sapolsky From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2006 Not the whole story though. A major difference is that the pre-human apes left the forests and took to the plains and what happened to them there. Plains, note, not caves! I get an error when I try to go there. snip http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060101faessay85110/robert-m-sapolsky/a -natural-history-of-peace.html?mode=print A Natural History of Peace By Robert M. Sapolsky From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2006 Summary: Humans like to think that they are unique, but the study of other primates has called into question the exceptionalism of our species. So what does primatology have to say about war and peace? Contrary to what was believed just a few decades ago, humans are not killer apes destined for violent conflict, but can make their own history. Robert M. Sapolsky is John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor of Biological Sciences and Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University. His most recent book is Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals. THE NAKED APE The evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky once said, All species are unique, but humans are uniquest. Humans have long taken pride in their specialness. But the study of other primates is rendering the concept of such human exceptionalism increasingly suspect. Some of the retrenchment has been relatively palatable, such as with the workings of our bodies. Thus we now know that a baboon heart can be transplanted into a human body and work for a few weeks, and human blood types are coded in Rh factors named after the rhesus monkeys that possess similar blood variability. More discomfiting is the continuum that has been demonstrated in the realm of cognition. We now know, for example, that other species invent tools and use them with dexterity and local cultural variation. Other primates display semanticity (the use of symbols to refer to objects and actions) in their communication in ways that would impress any linguist. And experiments have shown other primates to possess a theory of mind, that is, the ability to recognize that different individuals can have different thoughts and knowledge. Our purported uniqueness has been challenged most, however, with regard to our social life. Like the occasional human hermit, there are a few primates that are typically asocial (such as the orangutan). Apart from those, however, it turns out that one cannot understand a primate in isolation from its social group. Across the 150 or so species of primates, the larger the average social group, the larger the cortex relative to the rest of the brain. The fanciest part of the primate brain, in other words, seems to have been sculpted by evolution to enable us to gossip and groom, cooperate and cheat, and obsess about who is mating with whom. Humans, in short, are yet another primate with an intense and rich social life -- a fact that raises the question of whether primatology can teach us something about a rather important part of human sociality, war and peace. It used to be thought that humans were the only savagely violent primate. We are the only species that kills its own, one might have heard intoned portentously at the end of nature films several decades ago. That view fell by the wayside in the 1960s as it became clear that some other primates kill their fellows aplenty. Males kill; females kill. Some kill one another's infants with cold-blooded stratagems worthy of Richard III. Some use their toolmaking skills to fashion bigger and better cudgels. Some other primates even engage in what can only be called warfare -- organized, proactive group violence directed at other populations. As field studies of primates expanded, what became most striking was the variation in social practices across species. Yes, some primate species have lives filled with violence, frequent and varied. But life among others is filled with communitarianism, egalitarianism, and cooperative child rearing. Patterns emerged. In less aggressive species, such as gibbons or
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Keith, now the whole thing again but this time w/ MLA citations, plz. J/k, of course. ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Hello Gustl, ES and all This is what Chomsky says about Tweedledum and Tweedledee: It has often been pointed out by political scientists that the US is basically a one-party state -- the business party, with two factions, Democrats and Republicans. Most of the population seems to agree. A very high percentage, sometimes passing 80%, believe that the government serves the few and the special interests, not the people. ... More serious political scientists in the mainstream describe the US not as a democracy but as a polyarchy: a system of elite decision and periodic public ratification. There is surely much truth to the conclusion of the leading American social philosopher of the 20th century, John Dewey, whose main work was on democracy, that until there is democratic control of the primary economic institutions, politics will be the shadow cast on society by big business. Yea. Polyarchy. Anyway, I guess this is the kind of person you'd be voting against, and you'd probably lose, yet again. This guy just applied to join the list: Schlater MS Farmer Tired of paying oil companies the money that it takes to operate my farm. Which sounds like he doesn't vote for the Oil Party, but it turns out he does. Before he got accepted he had a look at some of the recent stuff in the list archives and got cross about it: From what I saw on the first page, most of the forum is bashing bush and the military. I find all of this unpatriotic and harmful to the US. Is this all that these people have in their life? I joined this to learn about biofuel, not all of this $#!^. It is amazing what you people think. All you do is complain, bitch and moan, yet offer no solutions. Thank God that there were enough people on America's portion of this big round ball in the sky with the sense to elect George Bush for a second term. We would probably be under the control of some third world country if your man would have gotten elected and by the way you all behave you would probably be elated, that is right before you found out that you were going to get your head cut off with a dull kitchen knife, (that part is actually what needs to happen to you all). Why don't you just move over there and live with them. Believe me, you would not be missed. Dunno why he'd thought he'd joined, all he did was apply (spike!). He wants to kill us, we should all be put to death by having our heads cut off with a dull kitchen knife. I guess that's what the glorious military's for, to kill people Americans think are threatening them, or threatening their cherished notions perhaps. Seems he fancies a bit of good old torture on the side too while he's at it. Thank God, he says. I suppose he's a Christian, or a so-called Christian, the God is hate type of Christian, ie not a Christian at all. In fact I don't think that people who respond to dissenting views with such outright hatred are real Americans at all, no matter where they were born. But they're the ones who call the shots, for 25 years already. Funny how they always want to kill people, he's not the first. A brain-damaged prat calling himself AirCooled, Cary S. Campbell from South Florida, who got the auto-boot for the same reason about a month ago, sent a mindless offlist message titled The End of the OPEN Forum or THE DECLINE AND EVENTUAL FALL OF THE BIOFUEL MAILING LIST to several recent posters saying what a useless idiot I am and so on, having sent me an offlist email which he now said was a big joke, very entertaining: I'm still laughing about it! It really is quite humorous, if I say so myself. Don't believe it, he was homicidal, really raving, he said he wanted to come here and shoot me, among other things. Quite a few of these folks have threatened to kill me, or kill everyone on the list or whatever. One guy, another far-right so-called American, was still saying 18 months later what fun it would be to stick a dagger in my eye. Why? Didn't read the rules, demanded an end to the off-topic political crap, got the boot. 18 months of homicidal fury. It doesn't bother me, I'm not complaining. Cary S. Campbell, eg, had had no contact with me whatsoever. If he wants to kill me that's his problem, it says nothing about me so I take no notice. These people are sane, eh? They live with their families in their neighbourhoods and go to their jobs and to church on Sundays and fantasise about shooting people, cutting their heads off with a blunt kitchen knife and sticking daggers in their eyes just for fun. Sane. The point, if any, is, so what? I quoted Bill Blum the other day on how to deal with people like this who deny reality and lash out at anything that threatens their cherished notions: My advice is to forget such people. They would support the outrages even if the government came to their homes, seized their first born, and hauled them away screaming, as long as the government assured them it was essential to fighting
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Evergreen Solutions wrote: I mean, let's look at NCLB, which is...tada, MORE REGULATION, and NO MONEY to support it. Lol, the NCLB is the bane of my existence, so was EDUCATE 2000, the precursor to it...which was really worse imo with it's CSO's and crap, which really was a Clinton administration folly...but really education mistakes are independent of political affilliation. My biggest overall problem with the NCLB is the funding cut for Head Start, which is one of the places with which I work directly. Isn't that the anithesis of Republicanism? What, unfunded policy? I'd say neither side has shown that they won't do this, lol. I don't doubt that, but you must admit the GOP hauls it out and waved it around like it's something to be proud of. And I can't think of a party that's done more to gut education funding, and destroy the public school system. Well, I said the only thing, really, I did, that makes me a republican is the idea of local law over federal law...states rights and all Oh. State's rights. As in, Gay marriage? Hasn't marriage always been a state thing? And now we need a Federal Amendment? Hmmm. that. And, for the record, I wouldn't call public schools destroyed. In danger? Some certainly are. Am I a fan of (federal) governmental educational standards? Not so much. Wanna know where I think it went wrong? Pre-depression, schools were funded locally by land taxes. The New Deal helped introduce legislation to lower those taxes in many areas (specifically rural) so that funding shifted to the state and federal level. The feds aren't going to arbitrarily give away money without telling you how to spend it...and now we're stuck. California? That's casting aside the continued segregation of cities like Chicago and Boston and I'm afraid much of America. Democrats have done absolutely no more towards actually fundamentally changing/helping education than have republicans, and I disagree with straight-ticket voting as much as I disagree with people who say I'm a democrat I could absolutely never vote for anyone republican or vice versa. Read some Johnathan Kozol sometime, he's probably my favorite education author. Actually, I really recommend the book Amazing Grace, I think most Americans should read it. Vouchers? Where does *that* money come from? You really want to know? I don't agree with vouchers, but I'm ALL about charter schools, because they give communities the opportunity (theoretically, depending on how the legislation is written, Illinois did a particularly poor job with their legislation, California did a great job...) to identify what is needed locally and address it with state funding. Anyway, it works like this. Schools are allocated money based on the number of students attending there, NOT so much on an annual fiscal quantity. For example, it's generally around $5-7k per year per student per school. Private schools still, in most states, receive state and federal funding, if for nothing else than their lunch programs...but in most cases are served by buses, etc...and are thus allocated a percentage of that per-capita amount. Anyway, if X child decides to go to Y private school or Z charter school, the state/county/region simply allocates the same funds that would have gone to their original W school. In most cases, vouchered allotments do NOT pay for entire tuitions...only the per-child allotment. I argued this myself, just like I argued that private school kids around here should get to play on public school teams of their choice, and my answer was that all their parents still pay the same taxes as everyone else, and so they are guaranteed the same access to the public funds. Right or wrong, I'm not making that call--just explaining how it works. For further clarity, say a school system has an annual budget of $100m. There are 20,000 kids in the system. That means the per-student allotment for that year is $5k. So, a school with 100 kids would be allowed approximately $500,000 for the year...which must encompass teacher salaries, maintainence, everything. That's why schools have to wait 3 or 5 years for new blacktop, they have to save up for it. This isn't anything new, and it's why schools never know until the last minute if everything's going to work right. There *are* no Republicans any more. I agree. Well...there are people who want it to be the way it *should* be, but I guess that's always debateable. They used to stand for: Fiscal restaint and a balanced budget - we're borrowing 2 billion a day to say afloat. I know, lol, and I very concerned with China over the next 10 years... A strong military - ours is stretched so thin these days we'd be in trouble if Bolivia attacked. This isn't exactly true, it's a strong state-led defensive force..(well, and the Star Wars program...) Adam Smith said that capitalism would periodically require large injections of investment cash
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
I don't doubt that, but you must admit the GOP hauls it out and waved it around like it's something to be proud of. Well, they did...I don't figure it'll get re-upped the next time it comes around. It's difficult to create a federal standard for spending federal moneys, which is why...imo...there shouldn't be a federal standard...but then states like Mississippi with *no* required school attendance law would possibly get further left in the dust. Oh. State's rights. As in, Gay marriage? Hasn't marriage always been a state thing? And now we need a Federal Amendment? Hmmm. You're 100% right. Same/same w/ abortion. Same/same with capital punishment. Same/same with lots of things. California? Yea, Cali's charter school law really enabled several inner city schools the opportunity to break the mold in the mid 90's when the laws first started popping up. John Stossel did a nice report on them around 1998 or so. Of course, just about as many charter schools fail as succeed, and who wants to take risks w/ education? You're an old phreaker? alt.2600? Hmm. Maybe there is hope. Lol, indeed. How do ya think I afforded phone calls when I went away to college? Actually, I've still got 7 unmodified tone dialers in my basement and one modified in my glove box, in case I get stuck somewhere. But yes, alt.2600 was a place I used to lurk quite frequently. More later. I have to go try to help save funding for Latino students to attend Medical school (Seriously). Aye, and I'll go try to get a corrupt school board to give at least some attention to some very low income families. Well, as most people on the list have already figured out, I am a loud-mouthed sarcastic jerk, and those are the ones that like me... Lol, we'll start a fanclub. I seem to get lots of off-list replies as it is, and I barely ever respond to much, lol. ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Keith Addison wrote: Anyway, I guess this is the kind of person you'd be voting against, and you'd probably lose, yet again. This guy just applied to join the list: Which sounds like he doesn't vote for the Oil Party, but it turns out he does. Before he got accepted he had a look at some of the recent stuff in the list archives and got cross about it: Jingoism rears its very ugly head again! From what I saw on the first page, most of the forum is bashing bush and the military. I find all of this unpatriotic and harmful to the US. Is this all that these people have in their life? I joined this to learn about biofuel, not all of this $#!^. What's really strange about this, is that in some other forums to which I have subscribed over the years, off-topic commentary is roundly condemned, yet every once in awhile some uberpatriot sneaks a shot over the bow. It's often couched in the language of independence, as if that's a goal reasonably and appropriately achieved in this era, but the underlying attitude of I deserve whatever I want and I don't want to hear any criticism from you is part of the reason the world finds itself in its current mess. Interestingly, these kinds of remarks don't draw the same kind of scathing rebuke often leveled at people around here, people who write with far greater depth and intellect. It is amazing what you people think. All you do is complain, bitch and moan, yet offer no solutions. A little bit of reading and understanding on the part of this person would have helped, don't you agree? Dunno why he'd thought he'd joined, all he did was apply (spike!). He wants to kill us, we should all be put to death by having our heads cut off with a dull kitchen knife. I guess that's what the glorious military's for, to kill people Americans think are threatening them, or threatening their cherished notions perhaps. Seems he fancies a bit of good old torture on the side too while he's at it. Thank God, he says. I suppose he's a Christian, or a so-called Christian, the God is hate type of Christian, ie not a Christian at all. I'm really glad you make this distinction. You can tell a tree by examining its fruit, and the scriptures are QUITE clear that no one who harbors hatred in his heart genuinely loves God. In fact I don't think that people who respond to dissenting views with such outright hatred are real Americans at all, no matter where they were born. But they're the ones who call the shots, for 25 years already. Honestly, Keith, sometimes you create the impression that all was sweetness and light over here before Mr. Reagan came into office. I'm old enough to remember the Watts Riots and imagery of people being sprayed with fire truck hoses in the streets. The attitudes that lead to the kinds of abuses we've discussed in this forum are as old as humanity itself. I just watched a National Geographic special on chimpanzees and bonobos, and many of the same aggressive behaviors that we decry in ourselves exist in the larger subspecies of ape. (Bonobos apparently solve their problems with sex, but let's NOT go there!) Given our genetic similarity to these creatures, it's likely that the attitudes underlying jingoism and other forms of superiority that we project are very old problems that were present in our ancestors before humanity branched off from the great apes. Funny how they always want to kill people, he's not the first. A brain-damaged prat calling himself AirCooled, Cary S. Campbell from South Florida, who got the auto-boot for the same reason about a month ago, sent a mindless offlist message titled The End of the OPEN Forum or THE DECLINE AND EVENTUAL FALL OF THE BIOFUEL MAILING LIST Oh yeah, I got that one. I'm frequently the target of posts from confused, former list members baffled by their ejection from this forum. (Some people seem to think I'm reasonable, and that I hold sway around here and can get them reinstated! I've never been the Alpha Male type.) One confused soul tried to prove from the Bible that God intended George Bush to win the election so that a Christian agenda could be imposed upon the world. If that's the case (and I see no evidence that it is), why would God have to resort to dishonesty in order to pull that off? He persisted in arguing with me about this for two or three e-mails, then realized I wasn't going to give in and simply vanished. These people are sane, eh? They live with their families in their neighbourhoods and go to their jobs and to church on Sundays and fantasise about shooting people, cutting their heads off with a blunt kitchen knife and sticking daggers in their eyes just for fun. Sane. I wrote a song about racism once that deals with the apparent normalcy of North American society. One lines goes: We're expecting
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
I think that the Repugs stealing the election to put Dubya in the WH shows that Kerry would have been better. Yeah, Kerry is a war machine backer, but Dubya is attacking the enviroment, dividing the country, running up unbelievable deficits, ad infinitum. Kerry's backing of the Iraqi war was totally dumb. But that was his only major fault. Dubya makes anyone look great in comparison. He is beyond the pale. (Cheney is a supreme conniver and is, of course, more dangerous than Dubya. Dubya is limited, but plays his role as a not too sharp (and thus somewhat unaccountable) Texas macho redneck very well.) Peace, D. Mindock P.S. I am no fan of Kerry, btw, but he would've been far gentler wrt environmental issues. I like Dennis Kucinich a whole lot. Kucinich's human at least and he might conceivably have bucked the system, but I don't think it's possible - it's the system that has to go, 60 years and more of US foreign policy has to change. Under Gore or Kerry everyone would have slumbered on happily while the same old stuff went on and on for another 20 years or more, but the world simply can't take that. Bush is just about perfect, he's so absolutely in-your-face that he's gone and woken everyone up at last. And made them angry. ... That's why last time round I was saying Vote Bush! (me and Gabriel Kolko), with fear and loathing... http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/msg38234.html [Biofuel] The Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power 16 Sep 2004 http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/msg40366.html Re: off topic flame: Re: [Biofuel] 38 short hours to go 4 Nov 2004 From: Re: [Biofuel] America Right or Wrong, 30 Dec 2005 http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/msg59103.html Me and Kolko and Bin Laden, LOL! Fear and loathing indeed - maybe it'll work, but will there be anything left? Ulp... Best Keith .. ...- Original Message -From: Evergreen Solutions [EMAIL PROTECTED]To: Biofuel@sustainablelists.orgSent: Friday, March 24, 2006 9:22 PMSubject: Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election KEITH! Finally. Someone else has said it... But Kerry, and Gore before him, would only have meant business as usual anyway,different band, same old song, everybody hates it. Don't you have any rock'n'roll? While I certainly don't advocate *not* voting, I'm glad someone has pointed out that alternative elected individuals would not have meant a deviation from the status quo. My vision for 15 years down the roadyou have to slide the barcode of your governmentally issued ID to votewhich of course contains an stage-encrypted RFID and an algorithym based off some sort of a checksum against the DNA information recorded on the ID.! Don't get me wrong, nobody's getting my DNA w/o a fight. ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Hallo , Friday, 24 March, 2006, 22:22:53, you wrote: ES KEITH! ES Finally. Someone else has said it... ES But Kerry, and Gore before him, would only have meant business as ES usual anyway,different band, same old song, everybody hates it. Don't ES you have any rock'n'roll? ES While I certainly don't advocate *not* voting, I'm glad someone has ES pointed out that alternative elected individuals would not have meant ES a deviation from the status quo. And why not? A choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee is no choice at all but rather illusion. The lesser of two evils is still evil. If there is going to be change voting isn't going to do it nor is violence. Person to person, heart to heart. Co-operation, discipline, restraint, responsibility. You have to have a good foundation on which to build otherwise the building will be unstable. There is no us and them, only we. Us and them is a distraction which gets our attention diverted so the self interest of the few can be imposed on the many. Pollution and global warming and wars may not kill us but our grandchildren and great-grandchildren? Well, I've got mine, too bad about you. I'd grow a tin beak and pick shit with the chickens rather than think like that (not that you do friend-general thought). Voting isn't going to cut it and neither is revolution. It is an evolutionary process. First you recognize and see the dots then you connect them then you tell your family and neighbors and it goes from there. And when you analzye your data use an absolutely unjaundiced and unprejudiced eye otherwise you will get it wrong.No self-interest, no cherished beliefs, no financial or political bias. Vote if you must but that just helps perpetuate the swindle. If you know the game is crooked and you enter it anyway then there is no room for pissing and moaning. Either way be prepared to suffer. It is like charging hills in boot camp. Just one more hill, one more step. Just don't give up. The good thing is that when you are charging the hills there are a lot of folks running along with you. Plenty of them here to help encourage and sustain one. Happy Happy, Gustl ES Don't get me wrong, nobody's getting my DNA w/o a fight. -- Je mehr wir haben, desto mehr fordert Gott von uns. We can't change the winds but we can adjust our sails. The safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters Es gibt Wahrheiten, die so sehr auf der Straße liegen, daß sie gerade deshalb von der gewöhnlichen Welt nicht gesehen oder wenigstens nicht erkannt werden. Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music. George Carlin The best portion of a good man's life - His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love. William Wordsworth ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Why not? Well, I'll tell you the one, single, solitary reason I classify myself as one of those dirty republicans...but I tell you I'm so close to the fence it's amazing. That reason is that I want power locally, in the hands of small, local government, local voters, and local business. I'm not naive enough to believe that many of the most important policy decisions are made in this fashion--but I cling to the hope, just like many of you cling to the hope that the policies you hate will change simply by more people getting mad about them. I believe that it's perfectly, 100% acceptable for people in one community to be ok with things that other people think are horrible, and to have different opinions of what laws and products are most important for every day life. I think that one of the big rifts in America is, simply, what people think are important items for daily life. I'm surrounded by moderaly poor Americans, ones whose focus is surviving, day to day, who don't have time to concentrate on foreign policy or environmentalism, and until some golden grail of welfare reform sweeps across the nation, they MUST be allowed to continue as they have...they must continue to get services until it can be fixed...Their concern has to focus on feeding their family, because that is their immediate necessity. Do I believe these people will vote differently than, say, people in Vale Colorado on environmental and tax issues? OF COURSE I DO, and I think it's perfectly acceptable. Like I said, until the changes that we all want actually happen, certain individuals must be allowed to maintain the status quo. Now...continuing on that line of thought, in America, we have primary elections. And before primary elections, we have races. And in those races, its peoples obligation to learn about candidates and, if they can, financially support them. IF you especially support someone, you tell people about them, and you vote with your wallet just as much as your ballot. Now, why do I not advocate not-voting at General Election scale? Because then you're giving the fruitcake wingers (left and right) the power to control the government, and that's extra scary on either side. Even if you arrange a wide-scale voting protest, probably ESPECIALLY if you arrange it, that's when the fringes will ally and block vote and ruin everything...and/or you'll see the third-party-disrupting-the-democrat-vote-phenomenon even harder. And...if you just decide not to vote on your own to show 'em who's boss, to me that's like saying I'm going to dump this $2.50 a gallon gasoline down the drain to protest gas prices. Almost like this guy, but not as extreme: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/07/21/international/i22D12.DTL http://clublet.com/house?page=MarkMcGowan Person to person, heart to heart. Co-operation, discipline, restraint, responsibility. That's great, and when the carebear song is over, we'll focus back on reality and understand that even if we can get hundreds of thousands of people to randomly give up the ideas of Getting ahead, getting wealthy, and punishment, they'll still get kicked in the face by...well, everyone. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a socialistic gated community start, but like I said in my senior thesis, socialism will never ever work when it has to compete w/ capitalism for raw products and labor. Yes, I do understand the paradox of a republican who appreciates socialism. Pollution and global warming and wars may not kill us but our grandchildren and great-grandchildren? I'd like to point out that only in the last 50 years has this luxury of thought been valid...really only in the last 25. Never before in the history of the human species has man been healthy and successful enough to seriously worry about this wellbeing in any other way than financially, and I think it's more the Rockafellers and Carnegies who thought like that anyway. I understand it also has to do w/ science and free time, but I don't think you can expect the global tide of thought to change what is really overnight, especially when more than half the world lives in conditions that certainly don't allow them that degree of freedom to alter the consumption patterns of their daily lives to better serve their children, and even if the Sri Lankan grandmother DID EVERYTHING she could to produce less pollution, any american's 9 year would cause more pollution in a year than she has in 30. Not naysaying---possibly being pessimistic, but really being realistic. Complaining gets you so far...then it becomes time to lace up your boots and go shitkickin. No self-interest, no cherished beliefs, no financial or political bias. Save for cultures like maybe Mayans and Aztecs (who I might add are both extinct), I don't think you're going to find many people in the *world* willing to vacate their morals, ideas, religion, and well being of their family and loved ones in order achieve a more utopian society,
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Hallo, When folks start chopping up mails to answer them it leaves a lot to be desired. Pulling things out of context, omitting things, changing meanings in the middle of the game. Sounds very like how organized religion works. Saturday, 25 March, 2006, 13:59:08, you wrote: ES Why not? Well, I'll tell you the one, single, solitary reason I ES classify myself as one of those dirty republicans...but I tell you I'm ES so close to the fence it's amazing. This is somewhat confusing. To which fence in particular are you so close? ES That reason is that I want power locally, in the hands of small, ES local government, local voters, and local business. I'm not naive ES enough to believe that many of the most important policy decisions ES are made in this fashion--but I cling to the hope, just like many ES of you cling to the hope that the policies you hate will change ES simply by more people getting mad about them. If you remember I was responding to this: But Kerry, and Gore before him, would only have meant business as usual anyway,different band, same old song, everybody hates it. Don't you have any rock'n'roll? Admittedly I came in in the middle of a discussion, but Kerry and Gore are hardly local players. What does your reply have to do with national politics, or have I missed something and was it local politics the discussion was about? If so please pardon me for being hasty and not having the good sense to inform myself as to the context of the discussion. ES I believe that it's perfectly, 100% acceptable for people in one ES community to be ok with things that other people think are horrible, ES and to have different opinions of what laws and products are most ES important for every day life. ES I think that one of the big rifts in America is, simply, what people ES think are important items for daily life. I'm surrounded by moderaly ES poor Americans, ones whose focus is surviving, day to day, who don't ES have time to concentrate on foreign policy or environmentalism, and ES until some golden grail of welfare reform sweeps across the nation, ES they MUST be allowed to continue as they have...they must continue to ES get services until it can be fixed...Their concern has to focus on ES feeding their family, because that is their immediate necessity. Do I ES believe these people will vote differently than, say, people in Vale ES Colorado on environmental and tax issues? OF COURSE I DO, and I think ES it's perfectly acceptable. Like I said, until the changes that we all ES want actually happen, certain individuals must be allowed to maintain ES the status quo. Does this mean we are back to national politics or? ES Now...continuing on that line of thought, in America, we have primary ES elections. And before primary elections, we have races. And in those ES races, its peoples obligation to learn about candidates and, if they ES can, financially support them. IF you especially support someone, you ES tell people about them, and you vote with your wallet just as much as ES your ballot. Please explain, in detail, how it is anyone's obligation to participate in any kind of races or elections in this land of liberty. Specifically, explain to me how it is MY obligation to involve myself in the workings of a corrupt and, as I see it, evil system. ES Now, why do I not advocate not-voting at General Election scale? ES Because then you're giving the fruitcake wingers (left and right) the ES power to control the government, and that's extra scary on either ES side. Even if you arrange a wide-scale voting protest, probably ES ESPECIALLY if you arrange it, that's when the fringes will ally and ES block vote and ruin everything...and/or you'll see the ES third-party-disrupting-the-democrat-vote-phenomenon even harder. ES And...if you just decide not to vote on your own to show 'em who's ES boss, to me that's like saying I'm going to dump this $2.50 a gallon ES gasoline down the drain to protest gas prices. Are you answering more than just my mail here or are you just ad-libbing what you think I believe? ES Almost like this guy, but not as extreme: ES http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/07/21/international/i22D12.DTL ES http://clublet.com/house?page=MarkMcGowan GSZ Person to person, heart to heart. Co-operation, discipline, GSZ restraint, responsibility. ES That's great, and when the carebear song is over, we'll focus back on ES reality It would be nice for you to define reality and then defend that definition. You will not be able to adequately defend it. ES and understand that even if we can get hundreds of thousands ES of people to randomly give up the ideas of Getting ahead, getting ES wealthy, and punishment, they'll still get kicked in the face ES by...well, everyone. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a socialistic ES gated community start, but like I said in my senior thesis, socialism ES will never
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
I apologize for not taking the time to consult the character map for the S set, having spent significant time in Bayern myself I tend to drop these things, as well as umlauts in lieu of e's. Beyond that, I did not respond in a hostile fashion, and was responded to as such, so I will cease arguing. You apparently did no better parsing my meaning than I apparently did yours. Peace... ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Hallo, Saturday, 25 March, 2006, 17:43:30, you wrote: ES I apologize for not taking the time to consult the character map for ES the S set, having spent significant time in Bayern myself I tend to ES drop these things, as well as umlauts in lieu of e's. ES Beyond that, I did not respond in a hostile fashion, and was responded ES to as such, so I will cease arguing. ES You apparently did no better parsing my meaning than I apparently did yours. ES Peace... Peace-without hesitation. Happy Happy, Gustl -- Je mehr wir haben, desto mehr fordert Gott von uns. We can't change the winds but we can adjust our sails. The safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters Es gibt Wahrheiten, die so sehr auf der Straße liegen, daß sie gerade deshalb von der gewöhnlichen Welt nicht gesehen oder wenigstens nicht erkannt werden. Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music. George Carlin The best portion of a good man's life - His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love. William Wordsworth ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Ok, I know I shouldn't, but I'll bite...how can you be a pro-education Republican? I mean, let's look at NCLB, which is...tada, MORE REGULATION, and NO MONEY to support it. Isn't that the anithesis of Republicanism? And I can't think of a party that's done more to gut education funding, and destroy the public school system. Vouchers? Where does *that* money come from? There *are* no Republicans any more. They used to stand for: Fiscal restaint and a balanced budget - we're borrowing 2 billion a day to say afloat. A strong military - ours is stretched so thin these days we'd be in trouble if Bolivia attacked. And less government intrusion into people's lives, we're now spying on ordinary Americans. Heck, maybe I'll start a political party on those themes. I might do pretty well. -Mike Why not? Well, I'll tell you the one, single, solitary reason I classify myself as one of those dirty republicans...but I tell you I'm so close to the fence it's amazing. Actually, I'll tell you a secret. I do vote on a platform, and on one exclusively. I vote for education. If a legislator makes 1 vote to decrease spending or teaching freedom for teachers, I lead a political action group that immediately blacklists them. Other things are important to me too, but I believe 100% that education is the first step, and that integrating more ideas and freedoms for teachers is the only real way we'll change the attitudes of tomorrow. Evergreen Solutions wrote: Why not? Well, I'll tell you the one, single, solitary reason I classify myself as one of those dirty republicans...but I tell you I'm so close to the fence it's amazing. That reason is that I want power locally, in the hands of small, local government, local voters, and local business. I'm not naive enough to believe that many of the most important policy decisions are made in this fashion--but I cling to the hope, just like many of you cling to the hope that the policies you hate will change simply by more people getting mad about them. I believe that it's perfectly, 100% acceptable for people in one community to be ok with things that other people think are horrible, and to have different opinions of what laws and products are most important for every day life. I think that one of the big rifts in America is, simply, what people think are important items for daily life. I'm surrounded by moderaly poor Americans, ones whose focus is surviving, day to day, who don't have time to concentrate on foreign policy or environmentalism, and until some golden grail of welfare reform sweeps across the nation, they MUST be allowed to continue as they have...they must continue to get services until it can be fixed...Their concern has to focus on feeding their family, because that is their immediate necessity. Do I believe these people will vote differently than, say, people in Vale Colorado on environmental and tax issues? OF COURSE I DO, and I think it's perfectly acceptable. Like I said, until the changes that we all want actually happen, certain individuals must be allowed to maintain the status quo. Now...continuing on that line of thought, in America, we have primary elections. And before primary elections, we have races. And in those races, its peoples obligation to learn about candidates and, if they can, financially support them. IF you especially support someone, you tell people about them, and you vote with your wallet just as much as your ballot. Now, why do I not advocate not-voting at General Election scale? Because then you're giving the fruitcake wingers (left and right) the power to control the government, and that's extra scary on either side. Even if you arrange a wide-scale voting protest, probably ESPECIALLY if you arrange it, that's when the fringes will ally and block vote and ruin everything...and/or you'll see the third-party-disrupting-the-democrat-vote-phenomenon even harder. And...if you just decide not to vote on your own to show 'em who's boss, to me that's like saying I'm going to dump this $2.50 a gallon gasoline down the drain to protest gas prices. Almost like this guy, but not as extreme: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/07/21/international/i22D12.DTL http://clublet.com/house?page=MarkMcGowan Person to person, heart to heart. Co-operation, discipline, restraint, responsibility. That's great, and when the carebear song is over, we'll focus back on reality and understand that even if we can get hundreds of thousands of people to randomly give up the ideas of Getting ahead, getting wealthy, and punishment, they'll still get kicked in the face by...well, everyone. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a socialistic gated community start, but like I said in my senior thesis, socialism will never ever work when it has to compete w/ capitalism for raw products and labor. Yes, I do understand the paradox of a republican who appreciates socialism. Pollution and global warming and wars may not
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
I mean, let's look at NCLB, which is...tada, MORE REGULATION, and NO MONEY to support it. Lol, the NCLB is the bane of my existence, so was EDUCATE 2000, the precursor to it...which was really worse imo with it's CSO's and crap, which really was a Clinton administration folly...but really education mistakes are independent of political affilliation. My biggest overall problem with the NCLB is the funding cut for Head Start, which is one of the places with which I work directly. Isn't that the anithesis of Republicanism? What, unfunded policy? I'd say neither side has shown that they won't do this, lol. And I can't think of a party that's done more to gut education funding, and destroy the public school system. Well, I said the only thing, really, I did, that makes me a republican is the idea of local law over federal law...states rights and all that. And, for the record, I wouldn't call public schools destroyed. In danger? Some certainly are. Am I a fan of (federal) governmental educational standards? Not so much. Wanna know where I think it went wrong? Pre-depression, schools were funded locally by land taxes. The New Deal helped introduce legislation to lower those taxes in many areas (specifically rural) so that funding shifted to the state and federal level. The feds aren't going to arbitrarily give away money without telling you how to spend it...and now we're stuck. That's casting aside the continued segregation of cities like Chicago and Boston and I'm afraid much of America. Democrats have done absolutely no more towards actually fundamentally changing/helping education than have republicans, and I disagree with straight-ticket voting as much as I disagree with people who say I'm a democrat I could absolutely never vote for anyone republican or vice versa. Read some Johnathan Kozol sometime, he's probably my favorite education author. Actually, I really recommend the book Amazing Grace, I think most Americans should read it. Vouchers? Where does *that* money come from? You really want to know? I don't agree with vouchers, but I'm ALL about charter schools, because they give communities the opportunity (theoretically, depending on how the legislation is written, Illinois did a particularly poor job with their legislation, California did a great job...) to identify what is needed locally and address it with state funding. Anyway, it works like this. Schools are allocated money based on the number of students attending there, NOT so much on an annual fiscal quantity. For example, it's generally around $5-7k per year per student per school. Private schools still, in most states, receive state and federal funding, if for nothing else than their lunch programs...but in most cases are served by buses, etc...and are thus allocated a percentage of that per-capita amount. Anyway, if X child decides to go to Y private school or Z charter school, the state/county/region simply allocates the same funds that would have gone to their original W school. In most cases, vouchered allotments do NOT pay for entire tuitions...only the per-child allotment. I argued this myself, just like I argued that private school kids around here should get to play on public school teams of their choice, and my answer was that all their parents still pay the same taxes as everyone else, and so they are guaranteed the same access to the public funds. Right or wrong, I'm not making that call--just explaining how it works. For further clarity, say a school system has an annual budget of $100m. There are 20,000 kids in the system. That means the per-student allotment for that year is $5k. So, a school with 100 kids would be allowed approximately $500,000 for the year...which must encompass teacher salaries, maintainence, everything. That's why schools have to wait 3 or 5 years for new blacktop, they have to save up for it. This isn't anything new, and it's why schools never know until the last minute if everything's going to work right. There *are* no Republicans any more. I agree. Well...there are people who want it to be the way it *should* be, but I guess that's always debateable. They used to stand for: Fiscal restaint and a balanced budget - we're borrowing 2 billion a day to say afloat. I know, lol, and I very concerned with China over the next 10 years... A strong military - ours is stretched so thin these days we'd be in trouble if Bolivia attacked. This isn't exactly true, it's a strong state-led defensive force..(well, and the Star Wars program...) Adam Smith said that capitalism would periodically require large injections of investment cash to stay afloat...and the Military-Industrial complex has always been a likely place to stick it. And less government intrusion into people's lives, we're now spying on ordinary Americans. I agree. Card carrying member of the ACLU here, however if you think that anythings honestly different today from 1968 it's that today they're admitting it.
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of the open-source, publicly moderated type systems, however...I'll point out some flaws...First off, the wide reaching level of conspiracy you're suggesting with the idea that he rigged the vote would in NO WAY be challenged by any of these mechanisms...the only possible issue would be more people on the payroll...but even then... 1. I don't trust my elected type people to look @ the guts of the software in the voting machine, and I sure as HELL don't want it made public for scrutiny. I'm not saying they don't need better protection, as the DeBolt machines were given to hackers last year and within about 3 hours they had dialed in and modified information. But...There's WY too many people with WY too much to gain to have source code filed away in some public office. Besides, anyone who understands anything about real hacking will tell you that half the fun is NOT having the source code... 2. Elected officials have no chip to compare... Again...none of my legislators would know the difference between an eeprom and a cpu, so...what's the point? A separate leislative/controlling entity to do checks? First off, they already exist, and second offthey're a *cough* publicly funded group, no less susceptible to the degree of conspiracy you're suggesting. Now, furthermore, the chip in a vegas slot machine that they're talkng about is the random number generator algorithm stored on an eeprom. All they do is an MD5 footprint to compare that the right algorithm is on the chip...randomly, which is about twice a month per machine. A casino can lose hundreds of thousands of dollars a day from re-chipped machines, so they have more REASON to check, plus there's no random number generator in an election machine. Apples to oranges comparison. 3. You don't want to know how many programmers have histories. Seriously. I have a friend who was one of those people who, when finally busted, was told come work for us or go to prison. Now he makes $200,000 a year working for the company who busted him. DeBold and Wells Fargo have invested millions of dollars into the development of these machines. Consider the challenges...they have to be excruciatingly easy to use, very hard to open, extraordinarily easy to maintain, and capable of reporting every single daily interaction, all while maintaining the fun encryption that uses jumping keys in case the data stream gets intercepted. My point is that they've got safeguards in place to monitor the people on the teams...a slot employee can swap an eeprom and never get caught and his friends'll make hundreds of thousands of dollars. What's a programmer going to gain? Well, he'll definately get caught when the review team comes in, he'll get fired, lose his job, lose his entire career, and not be able to go to the machine and recoup his losses. 4. You want public information on how testing is done? Seriously? Let's tell all the people who want to circumvent the system EXACTLY where they're looking for security, and therefore exactly what's NOT scritinized as closely? Thanks but no thanks, private security firms charge a lot of money for a reason, and a lot of it is because they DON'T share the specifics of how they do their work. 5. This one's a dual edged sword. You don't necessarily want any tom dick or harry to be able to log-in/pop open the machine and say Yup Delores, your vote DID go to Kerry, not Bush, but you also need voters to feel secure in knowledge that when they pressed KERRY the machine's variables weren't swapped and the vote didn't go to Bush. They don't want a papertrail exactly, and none of us want barcoded ID's with which to vote...but in most cases if you trust the people who are paid $50 a DAY for 15 hours of working the polls over the machine w/ automatic tally, then I think your reasoning is flawed. I'm not saying the system is right yet, or that it doesn't need significantly more work, I'm saying I personally believe it's just as secure if not more, simply by being LESS acceptable to the random poll workers in your small town. Just my 2 cents, feel free to disagree to your hearts content. ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Hi All, Although I tend to enbrace technology when it helps, what is the problem with giving each person a paper copy of their own vote. Then take this paper copy to another location at the voting place to be tabulated against the machine count as part of the voting process. This count would be the real count with the machine being the preliminary count. Just a thought. Tom Irwin From: Evergreen Solutions [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]To: Biofuel@sustainablelists.orgSent: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 13:24:20 -0300Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Fw: "How To Steal an Election" Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of the open-source, publicly moderated type systems, however...I'll point out some flaws...First off, the wide reaching level of conspiracy you're suggesting with the idea that "he rigged the vote" would in NO WAY be challenged by any of these mechanisms...the only possible issue would be more people on the payroll...but even then... 1. I don't trust my elected type people to look @ the guts of the software in the voting machine, and I sure as HELL don't want it made public for scrutiny. I'm not saying they don't need better protection, as the DeBolt machines were given to "hackers" last year and within about 3 hours they had dialed in and modified information. But...There's WY too many people with WY too much to gain to have source code filed away in some public office. Besides, anyone who understands anything about real hacking will tell you that half the fun is NOT having the source code... 2. "Elected officials have no chip to compare..." Again...none of my legislators would know the difference between an eeprom and a cpu, so...what's the point? A separate leislative/controlling entity to do checks? First off, they already exist, and second offthey're a *cough* publicly funded group, no less susceptible to the degree of conspiracy you're suggesting. Now, furthermore, the "chip" in a vegas slot machine that they're talkng about is the random number generator algorithm stored on an eeprom. All they do is an MD5 footprint to compare that the right algorithm is on the chip...randomly, which is about twice a month per machine. A casino can lose hundreds of thousands of dollars a day from re-chipped machines, so they have more REASON to check, plus there's no random number generator in an election machine. Apples to oranges comparison. 3. You don't want to know how many "programmers" have histories. Seriously. I have a friend who was one of those people who, when finally busted, was told "come work for us or go to prison." Now he makes $200,000 a year working for the company who busted him. DeBold and Wells Fargo have invested millions of dollars into the development of these machines. Consider the challenges...they have to be excruciatingly easy to use, very hard to open, extraordinarily easy to maintain, and capable of reporting every single daily interaction, all while maintaining the fun encryption that uses jumping keys in case the data stream gets intercepted. My point is that they've got safeguards in place to monitor the people on the teams...a slot employee can swap an eeprom and never get caught and his friends'll make hundreds of thousands of dollars. What's a programmer going to gain? Well, he'll definately get caught when the review team comes in, he'll get fired, lose his job, lose his entire career, and not be able to go to the machine and recoup his losses. 4. You want public information on how testing is done? Seriously? Let's tell all the people who want to circumvent the system EXACTLY where they're looking for security, and therefore exactly what's NOT scritinized as closely? Thanks but no thanks, private security firms charge a lot of money for a reason, and a lot of it is because they DON'T share the specifics of how they do their work. 5. This one's a dual edged sword. You don't necessarily want any tom dick or harry to be able to log-in/pop open the machine and say "Yup Delores, your vote DID go to Kerry, not Bush", but you also need voters to feel secure in knowledge that when they pressed KERRY the machine's variables weren't swapped and the vote didn't go to Bush. They don't want a papertrail exactly, and none of us want barcoded ID's with which to vote...but in most cases if you trust the people who are paid $50 a DAY for 15 hours of working the polls over the machine w/ automatic tally, then I think your reasoning is flawed. I'm not saying the system is right yet, or that it doesn't need significantly more work, I'm saying I personally believe it's just as secure if not more, simply by being LESS acceptable to the random poll workers in your small town. Just my 2 cents, feel free to disagree to your hearts content. ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at J
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
Tom Irwin wrote: Hi All, Although I tend to enbrace technology when it helps, what is the problem with giving each person a paper copy of their own vote. It's a great idea! When I sell my vote, I'll have a receipt, so I can get paid easily! Just in case anyone cares, poll receipts were done away with a while back, exactly for this reason. -- ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
On a side note; How it's done! http://www.syngress.com/catalog/?pid=3100 A good read. In fact, I've really enjoyed all of Syngress publishing's cyberfiction. -- ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
What's all this political crap got to do with HOCKEY??? LOL! Seriously, aren't you tinkering with the symptoms a bit? After your two most recent experiences (and everyone else's too!) and you're still considering voting? Wouldn't a massive boycott be more in order, among other things? The tide is turning, or it's already turned. Three or four years ago Americans who didn't swallow the party line were writing to me saying how alone and isolated they felt. Such good people. Now they're not alone and isolated and they're not just a minority either, millions of them are working and networking for change and I don't think they're going to take no for an answer. I really hope not. On the other hand a massive number of Americans know that the voting options don't cater for them, they're always saying so, and they're not just apathetic as so often alleged, they just aren't dumb. Enough of the people enough of the time, but it might not be enough anymore. Isn't it time for a very large and emphatic demonstration that nobody has a mandate either way, it's a fraud whether the poxy machines work or not? Don't vote! Or what, fool me three times? Or find a new Pigasus or something, or do all those things. The exit polls in Ohio showed a landslide for Kerry. But Bush somehow managed to win anyway. But Kerry, and Gore before him, would only have meant business as usual anyway,different band, same old song, everybody hates it. Don't you have any rock'n'roll? Best Keith Hi All, Although I tend to enbrace technology when it helps, what is the problem with giving each person a paper copy of their own vote. Then take this paper copy to another location at the voting place to be tabulated against the machine count as part of the voting process. This count would be the real count with the machine being the preliminary count. Just a thought. Tom Irwin From: Evergreen Solutions [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Biofuel@sustainablelists.org Sent: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 13:24:20 -0300 Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of the open-source, publicly moderated type systems, however...I'll point out some flaws... First off, the wide reaching level of conspiracy you're suggesting with the idea that he rigged the vote would in NO WAY be challenged by any of these mechanisms...the only possible issue would be more people on the payroll...but even then... 1. I don't trust my elected type people to look @ the guts of the software in the voting machine, and I sure as HELL don't want it made public for scrutiny. I'm not saying they don't need better protection, as the DeBolt machines were given to hackers last year and within about 3 hours they had dialed in and modified information. But...There's WY too many people with WY too much to gain to have source code filed away in some public office. Besides, anyone who understands anything about real hacking will tell you that half the fun is NOT having the source code... 2. Elected officials have no chip to compare... Again...none of my legislators would know the difference between an eeprom and a cpu, so...what's the point? A separate leislative/controlling entity to do checks? First off, they already exist, and second offthey're a *cough* publicly funded group, no less susceptible to the degree of conspiracy you're suggesting. Now, furthermore, the chip in a vegas slot machine that they're talkng about is the random number generator algorithm stored on an eeprom. All they do is an MD5 footprint to compare that the right algorithm is on the chip...randomly, which is about twice a month per machine. A casino can lose hundreds of thousands of dollars a day from re-chipped machines, so they have more REASON to check, plus there's no random number generator in an election machine. Apples to oranges comparison. 3. You don't want to know how many programmers have histories. Seriously. I have a friend who was one of those people who, when finally busted, was told come work for us or go to prison. Now he makes $200,000 a year working for the company who busted him. DeBold and Wells Fargo have invested millions of dollars into the development of these machines. Consider the challenges...they have to be excruciatingly easy to use, very hard to open, extraordinarily easy to maintain, and capable of reporting every single daily interaction, all while maintaining the fun encryption that uses jumping keys in case the data stream gets intercepted. My point is that they've got safeguards in place to monitor the people on the teams...a slot employee can swap an eeprom and never get caught and his friends'll make hundreds of thousands of dollars. What's a programmer going to gain? Well, he'll definately get caught when the review team comes in, he'll get fired, lose his job, lose his entire career, and not be able to go to the machine and recoup his losses. 4. You want public
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
As a way of "Correcting" the problems with all types of voting system(paper,punch cards,tally machines and such) Use Triple audit system like credit card transactions use. In the credit card world it goes - Initial transaction (electronic) - paper signature (now going local sig capture) - end of day reconciliation(electronic). 1) Electronic Voting machine toenter votes and register to the first electronic copy of the vote. (Copy #1 Electronic) 2) Print out a paper "Ballot" from the Electronic Voting machinewith votes registered.(Copy #2 Paper) - Voter can confirm that the votes were recorded correctly - Card would be encoded with a RSA type authentication signature for copy type attacks. - The Voters receipt would have the RSA type authentication signature - thus statically voter audits could be performed. 3)Voter feeds thepaper "Ballot"into a OCR vote counter. (Copy #3 Electronic) This system has 2 electronic copies for initial fraud detection. If designed right the two systems would be independent and separate. Thus remove the possibility of a single inside person hacking the system. The paper "Ballot"provides a physical ballot for recounts and fraud detection. Final vote tallies would require that all three copies match. Just a idea. Mark From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom IrwinSent: Friday, March 24, 2006 9:45 AMTo: Biofuel@sustainablelists.orgSubject: Re: [Biofuel] Fw: "How To Steal an Election" Hi All, Although I tend to enbrace technology when it helps, what is the problem with giving each person a paper copy of their own vote. Then take this paper copy to another location at the voting place to be tabulated against the machine count as part of the voting process. This count would be the real count with the machine being the preliminary count. Just a thought. Tom Irwin From: Evergreen Solutions [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]To: Biofuel@sustainablelists.orgSent: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 13:24:20 -0300Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Fw: "How To Steal an Election" Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of the open-source, publicly moderated type systems, however...I'll point out some flaws...First off, the wide reaching level of conspiracy you're suggesting with the idea that "he rigged the vote" would in NO WAY be challenged by any of these mechanisms...the only possible issue would be more people on the payroll...but even then... 1. I don't trust my elected type people to look @ the guts of the software in the voting machine, and I sure as HELL don't want it made public for scrutiny. I'm not saying they don't need better protection, as the DeBolt machines were given to "hackers" last year and within about 3 hours they had dialed in and modified information. But...There's WY too many people with WY too much to gain to have source code filed away in some public office. Besides, anyone who understands anything about real hacking will tell you that half the fun is NOT having the source code... 2. "Elected officials have no chip to compare..." Again...none of my legislators would know the difference between an eeprom and a cpu, so...what's the point? A separate leislative/controlling entity to do checks? First off, they already exist, and second offthey're a *cough* publicly funded group, no less susceptible to the degree of conspiracy you're suggesting. Now, furthermore, the "chip" in a vegas slot machine that they're talkng about is the random number generator algorithm stored on an eeprom. All they do is an MD5 footprint to compare that the right algorithm is on the chip...randomly, which is about twice a month per machine. A casino can lose hundreds of thousands of dollars a day from re-chipped machines, so they have more REASON to check, plus there's no random number generator in an election machine. Apples to oranges comparison. 3. You don't want to know how many "programmers" have histories. Seriously. I have a friend who was one of those people who, when finally busted, was told "come work for us or go to prison." Now he makes $200,000 a year working for the company who busted him. DeBold and Wells Fargo have invested millions of dollars into the development of these machines. Consider the challenges...they have to be excruciatingly easy to use, very hard to open, extraordinarily easy to maintain, and capable of reporting every single daily interaction, all while maintaining the fun encryption that uses jumping keys in case the data stream gets intercepted. My point is that they've got safeguards in place to monitor the people on the teams...a slot employee can swap an eeprom and never get caught and his friends'll make hundreds of thousands of dollars. What's a programmer going to gai
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
KEITH! Finally. Someone else has said it... But Kerry, and Gore before him, would only have meant business as usual anyway,different band, same old song, everybody hates it. Don't you have any rock'n'roll? While I certainly don't advocate *not* voting, I'm glad someone has pointed out that alternative elected individuals would not have meant a deviation from the status quo. My vision for 15 years down the roadyou have to slide the barcode of your governmentally issued ID to votewhich of course contains an stage-encrypted RFID and an algorithym based off some sort of a checksum against the DNA information recorded on the ID. Don't get me wrong, nobody's getting my DNA w/o a fight. ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election
I think that the Repugs stealing the election to put Dubya in the WH shows that Kerry would have been better. Yeah, Kerry is a war machine backer, but Dubya is attacking the enviroment, dividing the country, running up unbelievable deficits, ad infinitum. Kerry's backing of the Iraqi war was totally dumb. But that was his only major fault. Dubya makes anyone look great in comparison. He is beyond the pale. (Cheney is a supreme conniver and is, of course, more dangerous than Dubya. Dubya is limited, but plays his role as a not too sharp (and thus somewhat unaccountable) Texas macho redneck very well.) Peace, D. Mindock P.S. I am no fan of Kerry, btw, but he would've been far gentler wrt environmental issues. I like Dennis Kucinich a whole lot. .- Original Message -From: Evergreen Solutions [EMAIL PROTECTED]To: Biofuel@sustainablelists.orgSent: Friday, March 24, 2006 9:22 PMSubject: Re: [Biofuel] Fw: How To Steal an Election KEITH! Finally. Someone else has said it... But Kerry, and Gore before him, would only have meant business as usual anyway,different band, same old song, everybody hates it. Don't you have any rock'n'roll? While I certainly don't advocate *not* voting, I'm glad someone has pointed out that alternative elected individuals would not have meant a deviation from the status quo. My vision for 15 years down the roadyou have to slide the barcode of your governmentally issued ID to votewhich of course contains an stage-encrypted RFID and an algorithym based off some sort of a checksum against the DNA information recorded on the ID.! Don't get me wrong, nobody's getting my DNA w/o a fight. ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
