ShrubCo Plans to Increase Indentured-Servitude Age from 25 to 34
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/A rticle_Type1c=Articlecid=1083535813785call_pageid=968332188854col=9683 50060724 U.S. eyes proposal to draft women WASHINGTON--The chief of the U.S. Selective Service System has proposed registering women for the military draft and requiring that young Americans regularly inform the government about whether they have training in niche specialties needed in the armed services. The proposal, which the agency's acting director Lewis Brodsky presented to senior Pentagon officials just before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, also seeks to extend the age of draft registration to 34, up from 25. The issue of a renewed draft has gained attention because of concern that U.S. military forces are stretched thin because of worldwide commitments. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist strikes, U.S. forces have fought and won two wars, have established a major military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq and are now taking on peacekeeping duties in Haiti. The plan, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, highlights the extent to which agency officials have planned for an expanded military draft in case the administration and Congress authorize one in the future. In line with today's needs, the Selective Service System's structure, programs and activities should be re-engineered toward maintaining a national inventory of American men and, for the first time, women, ages 18 through 34, with an added focus on identifying individuals with critical skills, the agency said in a Feb. 11, 2003, proposal presented to Pentagon officials. . The agency acknowledged that they would have to market the concept of a female draft to Congress, which would have to authorize such a step. Agency spokesperson Dan Amon said the Pentagon has taken no action on the proposal. These ideas were only being floated for department of defence consideration, Amon said. He described the proposal as food for thought for contingency planning. - If voting could really change things, it would be illegal. - Diebold Internal Memos ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
ShrubCo Censoring the Anti-Censors
http://news.com.com/2010-1028-5204405.html U.S. blunders with keyword blacklist May 3, 2004, 8:00 AM PT By Declan McCullagh The U.S. government concocted a brilliant plan a few years ago: Why not give Internet surfers in China and Iran the ability to bypass their nations' notoriously restrictive blocks on Web sites? Soon afterward, the U.S. International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) invented a way to let people in China and Iran easily route around censorship by using a U.S.-based service to view banned sites such as BBC News, MIT and Amnesty International. But an independent report released Monday reveals that the U.S. government also censors what Chinese and Iranian citizens can see online. Technology used by the IBB, which puts out the Voice of America broadcasts, prevents them from visiting Web addresses that include a peculiar list of verboten keywords. The list includes ass (which inadvertently bans usembassy.state.gov), breast (breastcancer.com), hot (hotmail.com and hotels.com), pic (epic.noaa.gov) and teen (teens.drugabuse.gov). The minute you try to temper assistance with evading censorship with judgments about how that power should be used by citizens, you start down a path from which there's no clear endpoint, said Jonathan Zittrain, a Harvard University law professor and co-author of the report prepared by the OpenNet Initiative. The report was financed in part by the MacArthur Foundation and George Soros' Open Society Institute. That's the sad irony in the OpenNet Initiative's findings: A government agency charged with fighting Internet censorship is quietly censoring the Web itself. The list unintentionally reveals its author's views of what's appropriate and inappropriate. The IBB has justified a filtered Internet connection by arguing that it's inappropriate for U.S. funds to help residents of China and Iran--both of which receive dismal ratings from human rights group Freedom House--view pornography. In the abstract, the argument is a reasonable one. If the IBB's service had blocked only hard-core pornographic Web sites, few people would object. Instead, the list unintentionally reveals its author's views of what's appropriate and inappropriate. The official naughty-keyword list displays a conservative bias that labels any Web address with gay in them as verboten--a decision that affects thousands of Web sites that deal with gay and lesbian issues, as well as DioceseOfGaylord.org, a Roman Catholic site. More to the point, the U.S. government could have set a positive example to the world regarding acceptance of gays and lesbians--especially in Iran, which punishes homosexuality with death. In order to reach the IBB censorship-evading service, people in China or Iran connect to contractor Anonymizer's Web site. Then they can use Anonymizer.com as a kind of jumping-off point, also called a proxy server, to visit Web sites banned by their governments. Ken Berman, who oversees the China and Iran Internet projects at IBB, said Anonymizer came up with the list of dirty words. We did not, Berman said. Basically, we said, 'Implement a porn filter.' We were looking for serious, hard-core nasty stuff to block...I couldn't come up with a list (of off-limits words) if my life depended on it. In an e-mail to the OpenNet Initiative on Monday morning, Berman defended the concept of filtering as a way to preserve bandwidth. Since the U.S. taxpayers are financing this program...there are legitimate limits that may be imposed, his message said. These limits are hardly restrictive in finding any and all human rights, pro-democracy, dissident and other sites, as well as intellectual, religious, governmental and commercial sites. The porn filtering is a trade-off we feel is a proper balance and that, as noted in your Web release, frees up bandwidth for other uses and users. OpenNet Initiative did its research by connecting to the Anonymizer service from computers in Iran and evaluating which Google Web searches were blocked that theoretically should not be. The report concludes: For example, usembassy.state.gov is unavailable due to the presence of the letters 'ass' within the server's host name, and sussex.police.uk is unavailable for the same reason. In addition, the words 'my' and 'tv,' which are also domain suffixes, are filtered by IBB Anonymizer. As a consequence, all Web hosts registered within the domain name systems of Malaysia and Tuvalu are unavailable. For example, usembassy.state.gov is unavailable due to the presence of the letters 'ass' within the server's host name. --OpenNet Initiative's report Harvard University's Berkman Center worked on the project, as did the University of Toronto's Nart Villeneuve and Michelle Levesque. They tested only connections from Iran, but Anonymizer said the same list of keywords was used for China. The U.S. government asked us to filter broadly based on keywords to generally restrict Web sites, says Lance Cottrell, founder and
Re: What America Does with its Hegemony
On Mon, 03 May 2004 20:58:12 -0500, Steve Sloan II [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Gary Denton wrote: Well, I learned about the reliability of the American press last year when I went to independent sources and found out that Iraq had shut down its nuclear weapons program immediately after the first Gulf War. Where did this information come from? That definitely sounds like one of those extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence sorta situations... ___ Steve Sloan . Huntsville, Alabama = [EMAIL PROTECTED] God, where have you been? Do you just watch Fox? Sorry, this has been in my blog so many times and finally filtered out to mainstream media months ago. Here Is USATODAY 12/1/03 but I think it is more than a little self-serving and also was set up to provide an out for intel in the US who got it wrong. Iraqi scientists never revived their long-dead nuclear bomb program, and in fact lied to Saddam Hussein about how much progress they were making before U.S.-led attacks shut the operation down for good in 1991, Iraqi physicists say. Other leading physicists, in Baghdad interviews, said the hope for an Iraqi atomic bomb was never realistic. It was all like building sand castles, said Abdel Mehdi Talib, Baghdad University's dean of sciences. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-12-01-iraq-arms_x.htm Now my blog mostly had it from Imad Khadduri who posted it on the web in November of 02. He was a real Iraqi nuclear scientist who escaped to Canada, unlike the fake bombmaker Khidhir Hamza, who Chalabi and the neocons provided the American press. After the first Gulf War all engineers were pressed into service to repair all the damage from US bombing and shut down the nuclear weapons program which Saddam had agreed to do. What is more the CIA and US intelligence knew this from Kamil who told them and provided documents in 94. http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=874 I could go more into the example of Kamil and how his evidence of shut down programs was twisted by neocons, not the CIA, to support a war but that is not what you are asking. My archive search can only reach back to 2/14/03 but you can see by my post I had it earlier: They were getting notoriety for carrying Imad Khadduri, a former Iraqi nuclear scientist who has stated that Iraq's nuclear program was shut down after Gulf War 1 and that Khidhir Hamza, another former Iraqi scientist, and the Bush administration have fabricated and exaggerated claims otherwise. http://elemming2.blogspot.com/2003_02_14_elemming2_archive.html Is that enough, or would three or more examples be better? I really thought that Bush and Cheney should have been providing that extraordinary evidence, didn't you? #1 on google for liberal news http://elemming2.blogspot.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: What America Does with its Hegemony
- Original Message - From: Andrew Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, May 03, 2004 11:50 PM Subject: RE: What America Does with its Hegemony My real concern is when facts are wrong, or, as you point out, things are just never reported. Do you think much of the media, be it Arab, American, Indian etc, actually lies about facts? Is there some source of great truth we can check them against, and where is it? The Arab media has repeatedly lied about Jews. From claiming that Jews were warned about the 9-11 attack, which was by Israel to Jewish leaders co-planning the Holocaust, to the Protocol of the Elders of Zion being given as history, regular lies are told. I don't think you will get the same level of fantasy journalism from major US sources. As for the great source of truth, that's a good philosophical question. Even science isn't about the truth, just observations. But, I think it is more than reasonable to require that journalism be consistent with present and historical facts. One can check against them. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: March for Women's Lives
- Original Message - From: Mike Lee [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2004 12:44 AM Subject: RE: March for Women's Lives But that's neither here nor there, since my comments were not based on my own experience but on my observation of all the lazy, whining, incompetent, neurotic housewives I've observed over the years. Really, you could train a chimp to do a better job than most stay-at-home-moms. I think that you may be making an error extrapolating from the specific to the general. Proper care of little humans requires significantly greater effort than proper care of little sock puppets. For example, you can roll a little sock puppet up and put it in the drawer for months, and take it out again when you want to play with it again, with no real harm. I wouldn't recommend that for little humans. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Winning the War on Terror
-- From: Gary Denton [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Who are you responding to? Don't snip context. --- Fallujah blew up because of American miscalculation. It still exists because the Army doesn't want high American casualty urban street fighting with insufficient troops and the revolt spreading across the country. Just the fact they were fighting and how they were fighting cost America Iraq support and unified the opposing factions. Flattening it as you suggest would have cost us more support and universal condemnation. --- Who are you responding to? Don't snip context. --- Or is that what you want? --- Who are you responding to? Don't snip context. --- Since you keep proposing solutions that would increase hatred for America maybe you are on their side. --- Who are you responding to? Don't snip context. --- ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RAD51D
Secret of eternal life may give cancer cure 15:36 30 April 04 A new system that helps cells stave off the ravages of time has been discovered by scientists. The find may help explain how some cancer cells live forever - and provide a new route of attack for up to one in 10 tumours, they say. The system keeps cells youthful by adding thimble-like caps to the ends of chromosomes to protect them from damage and ageing, says the international team led by scientists at Cancer Research UK. They estimate that up to 10 per cent of cancer cells may rely on this capping system to grow and divide well past their natural life expectancy. The system is based on a molecule called RAD51D, which the team show protects DNA from damage. But the molecule also stops the protective ends of chromosomes from wearing away naturally, the process that normally allows a cell to grow old and die gracefully. Cancer has an amazing ability to shake off the shackles of ageing and death, which is one of the reasons why it can be so hard to treat, says Madalena Tarsounas, who led the study at Cancer Research UK's London Research Institute Understanding how cancer cells remain eternally young has been a key focus of research for more than a decade, so it's particularly exciting to have made such a striking discovery, she says. We think as many as 10 per cent of tumours may be heavily reliant on the new mechanism to keep their cells alive and these may also be highly susceptible to drugs targeted against it. Structure and stability The ends of chromosomes are capped by repetitive sequences of DNA called telomeres. They are important in maintaining the structure and stability of chromosomes as they divide and replicate during cell growth. As cells grow and divide many times, these telomeres shorten until they are so short they trigger the cell ageing process, and the cell dies. But in tumours, this natural ageing mechanism is somehow blocked, and cells grow and divide uncontrollably. Tarsounas and her colleagues used immunofluorescence to light up various molecules in cancer cells. They consistently found RD51D near the chromosomes' telomeres. And when they used a technique called RNA interference to block the action of this molecule, the cancer cells suffered substantial damage. Most of those treated with a blocker died within seven days, but cells treated with a placebo were unaffected. Blocking the action of RD51D also caused the ends of different chromosomes to fuse together more often when cells divided. Blocking this crucial molecule also increased the number of chromosomes with short telomeres, less than 6 kilobases in length, and decreased the number of long telomeres, over 20 kilobases in length. Cancer cells are adept at slipping the constraints of the ageing process, but this highly significant study points to ways of making them mortal, and vulnerable, once more, says Robert Souhami, Cancer Research UK's Director of Clinical and External Affairs. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Is it hot in here?
At 07:58 PM 5/3/04, Dan Minette wrote: 2) There is nothing underlying physics. Which explains the Gahan Wilson cartoon Is Nothing Sacred? -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: What America Does with its Hegemony
On Tue, 4 May 2004 14:50:33 +1000, Andrew Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think most of us wordly-wise enough to take most of our media with a good dash of salt. Anyway, we all tend to believe what we like and not believe what we don't, in regard to opinions/rumours/slants expressed in the press. My real concern is when facts are wrong, or, as you point out, things are just never reported. Do you think much of the media, be it Arab, American, Indian etc, actually lies about facts? Is there some source of great truth we can check them against, and where is it? I know I take my media with a double chaser, no salt and an aspirin. Since high school if I get interested in something I try to read several opposing viewpoints and try to understand who is more correct and why. Most media reports now are simply what the spokesperson said until someone grabs an interesting story and slant and runs with it and reporters like a flock of blackbirds all take off after. The media does not lie very often, not nearly as often as the people they report on or their spokesmen do. The problem with the media is that they will just print someone in authority's lie and rarely dig deeper. Damn if I know a source of great truth, I do try to determine what is in the interest of the publication to report. TV is easiest, whatever gets the most attention to get more people watching to sell more commercial product. Nearly all of American media is owned by large corporations now so whatever is not in large corporate interests is harder to find. It is much more important to note that most editors and publishers have a corporate bias than that most reporters have a human interest bias. Reporters report on the stories that editors and publishers give them and then they pass through the editor again. If you watch news on CNN or the major networks for an hour or so you can detect that they have a slight agenda in favor of people which might be called a liberal agenda, if you watch Fox for five minutes you see an obvious agenda in favor of simple flag-waving solutions from private enterprise with good guys and bad guys. But it isn't dull. the biggest problem is the never reported stories. My most frustrating never reported story now, Bush aides scrubbed his military records to hide the fact he was administratively punished. The facts are right there in the paperwork and reporters can't read, and can't add, and can't subtract dates, or at least can't get it published. I think the story maybe needs something more to it than it is a federal crime. Perhaps a major credible figure with knowledge to go with the paperwork. The Texas WMD case and the Tiger Force Vietnam atrocities made the back pages of some papers, that is more than this story. I decided a goal for me now is to work for the media for a closer look at the beast. #1 on google for liberal news ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Brin - On Writing Hard SF
Now in Sundiver you have an intel agent scurring about looking for a camera. In 2004 this becomes a very funny line. It's a faux past, and no one has ever shown the ability to avoid having at least a few of them show up as time goes by. Cameras are a big faux past in SF now. It distracted me in a couple Piper novels this year. http://elemming.blogspot.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: RAD51D
-- From: Z Fool Secret of eternal life may give cancer cure http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns4947 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Is it hot in here?
No turtles all the way down? Damn, I might as well go back to believing that the universe is one wave particle string looped a google times in time. This is restating Bach's theory of One. That was an easy question about clowns,. they are drunk, the glass is slippery. What about gravity, if elephants aren't sucking us down what is? It's too complicated to believe that gravity and inertia are scalar quantum retardation functions. I want my corks and elephants back. Easter Lemming Notebook ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: March for Women's Lives
Jim, declaring victory since it's the only way he ever gets one: It's been fun watching you utilize every corny, cliched Internet argument tactic ever invented in such a short time, Mike. I look forward to more entertainment in the future! Don't worry, Jim, you'll be entertained. Not enlightened, since Christ on the cross couldn't make you think a new thought, but you'll laugh, even if you still don't know why. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Star Wars day
Or so I was informed on another mailing list. May the fourth be with you! Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Winning the War on Terror
--- Who are you responding to? Don't snip context. --- Sorry, gmail always stacks the conversation based on subject and provides no easy way to snip headers. The following was what I was responding to. - 99% of Iraq is still standing for one reason--we could afford to win the war that way. If we are forced to engage in more theaters than we feel comfortable in, our lethality will increase immediately by orders of magnitude. Again, keep pushing it, you idiots. To take the fact that Fallujah still exists as a sign of American weakness is a terrible miscalculation. Mike Lee Islamic Moderate ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: March for Women's Lives
Mike Lee wrote: Really, get a nanny if you're so damn tired, because you're not very good at being a mom, and obviously you need professional help. Actually, if you've got infant twins they have an older sibling who's still pretty young, or if you have triplets or more, you could really use the help for the first year or so. Hire someone or see how much family and friends are willing to do to help. (I know one woman with quadruplets; her sister is practically living there to help out with the kids. And she had them before her first child's second birthday, so that's a lot of kids in a very short period of time.) If it's just one kid, then after the first year or so, it's not that bad. If it's twins, that can get a little rough. I've talked to a number of mothers who had twins and then later had just one, and after you've dealt with twins, handling a single infant is a breeze by comparison. (And if you're working and you have twins or more, it's more cost-effective to hire a nanny than to put them all in daycare, at least for the first couple of years.) Julia p.s. I'm wondering how many kids Mike Lee has, because it gets more interesting the more you have ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Winning the War on Terror
From: The Fool [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, 4 May 2004 07:14:45 -0500 Subject: Re: Winning the War on Terror --- Who are you responding to? Don't snip context. --- Thanks, that was actually a useful criticism. I found the way to get to the headers. #1 on google for liberal news. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: ShrubCo Plans to Increase Indentured-Servitude Age from 25 to 34
The Fool wrote: In line with today's needs, the Selective Service System's structure, programs and activities should be re-engineered toward maintaining a national inventory of American men and, for the first time, women, ages 18 through 34, with an added focus on identifying individuals with critical skills, the agency said in a Feb. 11, 2003, proposal presented to Pentagon officials. So does this mean that Jenna might end up in combat? Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Brin - On Writing Hard SF
In a message dated 5/4/2004 8:07:40 AM US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Cameras are a big faux past in SF now. It distracted me in a couple Piper novels this year. Oh, that's been over a decade for me. Tapes can be transfered at 60 speed from viewer to viewer, but ol' Jack Holloway spends an entire afternoon developing movie film. There's a real science faux paux internal to Fuzzy Sapiens. Snooper robots can go through the ducts, but the vault as described has no defense against being robbed by using snooper robots. Sheep and cotton. That's my big Jijo bugaboo. If you expect to set up a colony on an uninhabited world where you don't know how useful the local flora and fauna are going to be, then you have to bring your fabric sources with you. (And the only reason I haven't yet changed the subject line to Br!n.) Probable answer: Mulc cotton already existed and the Noor thought the sheep were tasty while they lasted. William Taylor ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Star Wars day
Or so I was informed on another mailing list. May the fourth be with you! Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Disturbing evidence of torture
- Original Message - From: Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, April 30, 2004 11:31 PM Subject: Re: Disturbing evidence of torture But that's neither here nor there. It's not shocking or surprising but it is, of course, tragic. I'm a bit disturbed that Rumsfeld, just now, appears to have been shocked as I have, and as you haven't. My shock was partially based on the assumption that the US occupation force was competent enough to provide as good a prison environment as possible. I expected there to be good supervision, and for treatment to be exemplary...mainly because it is very much in our self interest to do so. From what I am reading, and from the quotes I've seen from those involved, the supervision at the prison was woefully inadaquate. The comments by the general who was in charge of the prison were particularly disturbing. She claimed to have not been in control of that part of the prison. She said her superiors were at least partially to blame for what happened. She is not some private, she is a general. From the reports I've read, at least that part of the prison was seriously out of control. If one just considers her culpability, it seems that she was oblidged to raise a tremendous stink if she was not allowed to do her job properly. (if she is simply lying about her resources then she is even more culpable.) No matter what, her superiors do bear responsability for the apparent massive breakdown of discipline at the prison. The nature of the photos mesh with other reports on the lack of control in the prisons. I cannot imagine posing for happy face photos of abuse when one knows that any abuse would be severely punished. Beatings in the dark, yes, but not voluntary documentation. This is also consistant with other reports. For example from http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/04/iraq.abuse.main/index.html quote According to Taguba, the alleged abuse was systemic, intentional and perpetrated by members of the military police guard force, with the apparent purpose being to set physical and mental conditions for the favorable interrogation of witnesses. end quote Americans who commit atrocities are, and should be, punished for their crimes. There is _nothing_ more important facing the American military's justice system right now. I agree with that. I know that you are strongly pro-military, and that part of being pro-military is that you hold the military to high standards. One of the things that bothers me is that the senior leadership in Defense should have known about the high risk of prisoner abuse and should have taken significant steps to minimize the possibility. If the reports of massive understaffing and no real supervision of a mix of MPs, intellegence officers of the armed forces, and private contractors are accurate, the exact opposite happened. Even I, who argued against the war in Iraq due to lack of proper preparation for the aftermath though that we would be far better prepared than this. Finally, one of the reports that bothered me was one that stated that, probably, half the people in prison posed no risk. We were keeping them there mostly becasue the record keeping was so bad. (IIRC, an authoritive source was quoted...I can go back and look if need be.). If that's true, then we really planned poorly for this. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: City of Heroes
BTW, in case any of you do play, my character is the Gurkha, a natural blaster on the Victory server. My second character is Kelorn, also on the same server. - jmh ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Collected thoughs on Iraq
From: Ronn!Blankenship [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] them stand as bases for the insurgents. This is especially true with the Shrine of Ali in Najaf. I agree that the rules of war allow for attacks on mosques if they are used for military purposes, but I think it highly likely that we would be blamed for any damage. This is a classic double bind, which has always been one of my nightmare situations. So what do you think now that our troops have returned fire when someone was firing at them from a minaret? Part of me wants suggest making a general announcement that if a mosque is being used as a base to launch military attacks against our troops it has automatically lost its protected status and will be flattened. Not just the minaret but the entire thing. After an appropriate warning so non-combatants can be evacuated. (Not something like the Shrine of Ali, as somethings are just too powerful of a symbol to do something like that.) But then the rest of me responds that this could play directly into the hands of the insurgents. I don't know, it's a very tough question. Clearly we can't allow this to go completely unanswered. - jmh ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Disturbing evidence of torture
--- Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm a bit disturbed that Rumsfeld, just now, appears to have been shocked as I have, and as you haven't. My shock was partially based on the assumption that the US occupation force was competent enough to provide as good a prison environment as possible. I expected there to be good supervision, and for treatment to be exemplary...mainly because it is very much in our self interest to do so. Well, my lack of shock was more based on a (very) cynical opinion of how organizations react under stress, and an equally low opinion of how bad prison conditions are in the US. From what I could see, it looked like the Stanford Prison Experiment run in real life - but given what happened in that experiment, nothing we saw was all _that_ suprising. She is not some private, she is a general. To be fair, she also has a very high incentive to claim that she was unable to succeed in her position, whether or not that was the case. Americans who commit atrocities are, and should be, punished for their crimes. There is _nothing_ more important facing the American military's justice system right now. I agree with that. I know that you are strongly pro-military, and that part of being pro-military is that you hold the military to high standards. One of the things that bothers me is that the senior leadership in Defense should have known about the high risk of prisoner abuse and should have taken significant steps to minimize the possibility. Yes. Clearly this was a massive screw-up. My guess is that this is one of the things that people just don't think about. Historically the human rights record of American soldiers is exemplary - for example, the reported incidents of problems caused by American soldiers in Somalia versus those of _other NATO units_ was orders of magnitude lower. Similarly in other units (this from a discussion with Charlie Moskos of Northwestern). There was, for example, no equivalent of the incredible brutality shown by an elite Canadian paratrooper regiment (IIRC). A lot of people (myself included) credited this to the higher rate of integration of women into the American military, on the theory that men tend to act more decently in front of women and that women are less likely to suffer from testosterone poisoning. One of the most shocking things here was seeing _women_ involved in the incidents. Apparently we were all wrong. At any rate, in a purely analytical sense, here's my guess as to what happened (assuming that this wasn't ordered by higher-ups, which strikes me as unlikely just because that would be too stupid for words). Some high-value prisoners were probably being aggressively interrogated. That ethos spread through much of the prison. The particular guards involved with this were a bunch of fuck-ups. They picked up that ethos, had no adult supervision (because, at least in part and from my experience with them, American officers tend to have a blind spot about things like this, in part because of their excellent historical record and in part because they're used to dealing with highly competent regulars, not idiots like these clowns, and those regulars would - I'm guessing - never do anything so unimaginably stupid and vile) and normal group dynamic behaviors - ones that we see in experimental psychology all the time - promptly asserted themselves, until you got the atrocity that we saw here. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Is it hot in here?
- Original Message - From: Gary Denton [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2004 5:06 AM Subject: Re: Is it hot in here? That was an easy question about clowns,. they are drunk, the glass is slippery. Yeah, but they have those really big shoes for extra traction that also double for wooden leg overflow. xponent The Clowns Are Coming Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Disturbing evidence of torture
- Original Message - From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2004 1:52 PM Subject: Re: Disturbing evidence of torture I'm a bit disturbed that Rumsfeld, just now, appears to have been shocked as I have, and as you haven't. My shock was partially based on the assumption that the US occupation force was competent enough to provide as good a prison environment as possible. I expected there to be good supervision, and for treatment to be exemplary...mainly because it is very much in our self interest to do so. From what I am reading, and from the quotes I've seen from those involved, the supervision at the prison was woefully inadaquate. The comments by the general who was in charge of the prison were particularly disturbing. She claimed to have not been in control of that part of the prison. She said her superiors were at least partially to blame for what happened. It appears that this didn't start in the prison and that the tomfoolery began over a year ago. http://www.myjokemail.com/content/modules/myalbum/photo.php?lid=186 (This is a humor website, but what's shown is not so funny considering recent events and allegations.) xponent We Need A Professional Army Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Disturbing evidence of torture
A lot of people (myself included) credited this to the higher rate of integration of women into the American military, on the theory that men tend to act more decently in front of women and that women are less likely to suffer from testosterone poisoning. Well, that's an interesting theory, but I don't neccessarily agree with it (before or after). Most of the time, where troops have contact with the local population or the enemy, women soldiers will not be around, or at the very least apparent. This is because of the non-combat role they're in. Personally, based on my experience, I think more has to do with training, higher intelligence level of most troops (thanks to education...say what you will about the US educational system, and indeed there are many problems, but at the very least US soldiers are better educated than most of the populations they come incontact with in Operations Other than Warfare, plus the education they get in the military), and better quality recruits (who are volunteers). Compare this to the Vietnam era, when educational standards were lower, the Army still practiced conscription, and had yet to experience the self-analysis of the post-Vietnam period. Damon. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: ShrubCo Plans to Increase Indentured-Servitude Age from 25 to 34
- Original Message - From: Julia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2004 12:11 PM Subject: Re: ShrubCo Plans to Increase Indentured-Servitude Age from 25 to 34 The Fool wrote: In line with today's needs, the Selective Service System's structure, programs and activities should be re-engineered toward maintaining a national inventory of American men and, for the first time, women, ages 18 through 34, with an added focus on identifying individuals with critical skills, the agency said in a Feb. 11, 2003, proposal presented to Pentagon officials. So does this mean that Jenna might end up in combat? Nah...she will learn to fly and then work on someone's election campaign. xponent The Snarkiest Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: ShrubCo Plans to Increase Indentured-Servitude Age from 25 to 34
Robert Seeberger wrote: - Original Message - From: Julia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2004 12:11 PM Subject: Re: ShrubCo Plans to Increase Indentured-Servitude Age from 25 to 34 The Fool wrote: In line with today's needs, the Selective Service System's structure, programs and activities should be re-engineered toward maintaining a national inventory of American men and, for the first time, women, ages 18 through 34, with an added focus on identifying individuals with critical skills, the agency said in a Feb. 11, 2003, proposal presented to Pentagon officials. So does this mean that Jenna might end up in combat? Nah...she will learn to fly and then work on someone's election campaign. Will she then become a commercial airline pilot later on? Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: ShrubCo Plans to Increase Indentured-Servitude Age from 25 to 34
- Original Message - From: Julia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2004 7:43 PM Subject: Re: ShrubCo Plans to Increase Indentured-Servitude Age from 25 to 34 Robert Seeberger wrote: - Original Message - From: Julia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2004 12:11 PM Subject: Re: ShrubCo Plans to Increase Indentured-Servitude Age from 25 to 34 The Fool wrote: In line with today's needs, the Selective Service System's structure, programs and activities should be re-engineered toward maintaining a national inventory of American men and, for the first time, women, ages 18 through 34, with an added focus on identifying individuals with critical skills, the agency said in a Feb. 11, 2003, proposal presented to Pentagon officials. So does this mean that Jenna might end up in combat? Nah...she will learn to fly and then work on someone's election campaign. Will she then become a commercial airline pilot later on? Own a pro-sports team? xponent The Apple Never Falls Far From The Tree Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Is it hot in here?
Robert Seeberger wrote: No turtles?! No elephants either! And without them, our fat mines will run dry! Jim Fifth Elephant Maru ___ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: What America Does with its Hegemony
Gary Denton wrote: Well, I learned about the reliability of the American press last year when I went to independent sources and found out that Iraq had shut down its nuclear weapons program immediately after the first Gulf War. Where did this information come from? That definitely sounds like one of those extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence sorta situations... God, where have you been? Do you just watch Fox? Sorry, this has been in my blog so many times and finally filtered out to mainstream media months ago. Here Is USATODAY 12/1/03 but I think it is more than a little self-serving and also was set up to provide an out for intel in the US who got it wrong. Iraqi scientists never revived their long-dead nuclear bomb program, and in fact lied to Saddam Hussein about how much progress they were making before U.S.-led attacks shut the operation down for good in 1991, Iraqi physicists say. Other leading physicists, in Baghdad interviews, said the hope for an Iraqi atomic bomb was never realistic. It was all like building sand castles, said Abdel Mehdi Talib, Baghdad University's dean of sciences. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-12-01-iraq-arms_x.htm OK, that essentially fixes what I was having so much trouble buying. I couldn't see any reason why Saddam would quit trying to build or buy nuclear weapons, because he certainly wouldn't do it out of the goodness of his heart. These articles give a reason, and I *can* believe that his scientists tried for a long time and failed, then he gave it up to move on to some other scheme after Gulf War I wrecked his facilities. __ Steve Sloan . Huntsville, Alabama = [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brin-L list pages .. http://www.brin-l.org Science Fiction-themed online store . http://www.sloan3d.com/store Chmeee's 3D Objects http://www.sloan3d.com/chmeee 3D and Drawing Galleries .. http://www.sloansteady.com Software Science Fiction, Science, and Computer Links Science fiction scans . http://www.sloan3d.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Lion loose in Columbus Ohio
I guess this news is better than death and mayhem, but the local news stations are so starved for news that one would think that we have a pack (or is it pride?) of lions loose. The short of it is, someone had a pet lion that got loose. Nobody is owning up to it, but it is the News Of The Day here in Columbus Ohio. The area featured in the news reports is about 1/2 mile from the base I work on. My favorite stupid quotes of the day are Wild Lion and a local school official saying on the news that the lion isn't welcome at this school. Morons. http://tinyurl.com/25uyf And http://tinyurl.com/355fp ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Lion loose in Columbus Ohio
In a message dated 5/4/2004 6:16:49 PM US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The short of it is, someone had a pet lion that got loose. Nobody is owning up to it, but it is the News Of The Day here in Columbus Ohio If it's an old over the hill female, best leave it in the cornfield. William Taylor - Vague movie references R us. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Disturbing evidence of torture
--- Damon Agretto [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, that's an interesting theory, but I don't neccessarily agree with it (before or after). Most of the time, where troops have contact with the local population or the enemy, women soldiers will not be around, or at the very least apparent. This is because of the non-combat role they're in. Damon. This is certainly true, of course. I think the theory is that the presence of women in the area has a high benefit. The British and Canadian armies are both also volunteer, and while the educational level and such of the American military is definitely better than both, it seems like the huge gap in performance seems like it is too large to be explained by that sort of fairly marginal difference. That aside, I have to say that I find myself virtually incapable of thinking about this rationally. I am _quivering_ with rage about this. This is personal to me. I volunteered to go there almost a year ago. _Two weeks ago_ they called me to say that my security clearance was being processed and that a final offer might be imminent. Just by _volunteering_ I probably did permanent damage to my career at McKinsey, which was not a small thing to give up. These fucking idiots have permanently stained the effort of every one of my friends over there, of every _person_ working there in both the army and the civilian service. If the army decided to shoot them in the main street of _Baghdad_ I wouldn't be upset. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Audio CDs
I know the underlying science for representing analog sound in a digital format but I'm missing something important. More than a few new and older* CDs are quiet. *(Stuff originally recorded back in the 70s, i.e. not new music). If I go from the radio to a CD, I have to turn the volume up to get the same (seemingly) sound level. This is in many cars, or home players. That may be bad example; but I also notice different sound levels when I take songs from different CDs and make my own collection. So the question: is there a reason this is so? Do they figure on better sound reproduction if the amplifier is producing the volume, rather than the source? Or is it to have more head room, space for loud crashes? Something else? Kevin T. - VRWC *^%$ Red Wings ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Star Wars day
From: Julia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Star Wars day Date: Tue, 04 May 2004 16:40:30 -0500 Or so I was informed on another mailing list. May the fourth be with you! Well here in NEWFIEland we still have 4 mins until the 5th...so happy Star Wars day! -Travis _ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN Premium http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-capage=byoa/premxAPID=1994DI=1034SU=http://hotmail.com/encaHL=Market_MSNIS_Taglines ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: ShrubCo Plans to Increase Indentured-Servitude Age from 25 to 34
Will she then become a commercial airline pilot later on? Would YOU fly in a plane piloted by that drunk, selfish, spoiled brat? -- Tom Beck my LiveJournal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/tomfodw/ _The Universal Baseball Association, J. Henry Waugh, Prop._ fan club: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/j_henry_waugh/ New York (Football) Giants: http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/Go_Big_Blue/?yguid=176842240 I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I never thought I'd see the last. - Dr. Jerry Pournelle -- ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Audio CDs
From: Kevin Tarr [EMAIL PROTECTED] I know the underlying science for representing analog sound in a digital format but I'm missing something important. More than a few new and older* CDs are quiet. *(Stuff originally recorded back in the 70s, i.e. not new music). If I go from the radio to a CD, I have to turn the volume up to get the same (seemingly) sound level. This is in many cars, or home players. That may be bad example; but I also notice different sound levels when I take songs from different CDs and make my own collection. I don't know how the radio stations keep the volume level relatively constant between songs (I'm guessing the guy operating the equipment does it partially by hand, or at least used to before modern digital equipment), but definitely different CD's are recorded at different volume levels... The CD .wav-.mp3 batch conversion script I use has a setting to normalize every song to around 75% so of max volume, which helps a lot in keeping the levels constant on my mp3's and mix CD's. So the question: is there a reason this is so? Do they figure on better sound reproduction if the amplifier is producing the volume, rather than the source? Or is it to have more head room, space for loud crashes? Something else? My guesses: - With less noise on CD's (vs tapes/albums), the music doesn't need to be as loud to be heard over that noise. - Less noise (and arguably better modern stereo equipment) also allows for a greater usable dynamic range for the music (ie: more head room as you say). - There's probably no standard, so the level for any given CD might just by what the producer/sound engineer chose it to be. _ MSN Toolbar provides one-click access to Hotmail from any Web page FREE download! http://toolbar.msn.com/go/onm00200413ave/direct/01/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: life decision
At 06:38 PM 4/28/2004, you wrote: Kevin Tarr wrote: I know I'll have to make this choice on my own. Just wondering what I might be missing. Well, you listed a whole bunch of negatives, and the positives you listed were qualified with caveats, and yet you posed the question to the list. Reading between the lines, I'm guessing that this is something you want to do, but don't really understand why you want to. If that's the case, then the odds are very good that it will all work out... Don't be too analytical with these things - just enjoy life wherever it takes you. My AUD0.02, not even worth 2c in USD... Cheers Russell C I can tell you people this, because I don't care what you think about me: there are two reasons that most people will think I want to move back there, both involving women. While I do think about the what might have been and what may be, they were not in my mind when I saw the job. Course I could be fooling myself, that they are so hard wired into my brain that even when I'm not thinking about them, I still am. I told my third favorite friend about the job, as a secret, and he told me the same thing, he was interviewing for a job back home also, the same miles in the opposite direction. Hearing that I figured my luck flew out the window. He needs that job; I don't. I mean, he has a job and a wife and kids but it's not a good job while I have a wonderful job and only need to support my high tech addiction. But I still applied. Kevin T. - VRWC I bought a powerball ticket also, figuring my odds are the same ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Audio CDs
Kevin Tarr wrote: So the question: is there a reason this is so? Do they figure on better sound reproduction if the amplifier is producing the volume, rather than the source? Or is it to have more head room, space for loud crashes? Something else? I've heard anecdotally that the reason for this is generally due to recording companies attempting to make their tracks more noticeable on radio play. Radio stations are likely to keep their levels pretty even, and if you produce a CD for a band that's mastered slightly higher than the other competing music played before and after, the song will stand out more, and (presumably) move more units. I've also heard that this trend is actually quite detrimental to the overall quality of music on the CDs because the audio format being used is capable of a very impressive dynamic range, and when the baseline level keeps on getting raised, there's hardly any opportunity to actually effect dynamic shifts in the music (classical CDs, I've noticed, have been better at resisting this trend). Of course, for the sort of music which has probably been driving the trend, dynamic variation isn't exactly a focus, but still. All that's just stuff I heard, though, can't really vouch for its validity... -CJ -- WOW: Kakistocracy| The ships hung in the sky in much the same apocalyptech.com/wow |way that bricks don't. - Douglas Adams, [EMAIL PROTECTED] | _The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy_ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: March for Women's Lives
At 04:38 PM 5/4/04, Julia Thompson wrote: Mike Lee wrote: Really, get a nanny if you're so damn tired, because you're not very good at being a mom, and obviously you need professional help. Actually, if you've got infant twins they have an older sibling who's still pretty young, or if you have triplets or more, you could really use the help for the first year or so. Hire someone or see how much family and friends are willing to do to help. (I know one woman with quadruplets; her sister is practically living there to help out with the kids. And she had them before her first child's second birthday, so that's a lot of kids in a very short period of time.) If it's just one kid, then after the first year or so, it's not that bad. If it's twins, that can get a little rough. I've talked to a number of mothers who had twins and then later had just one, and after you've dealt with twins, handling a single infant is a breeze by comparison. (And if you're working and you have twins or more, it's more cost-effective to hire a nanny than to put them all in daycare, at least for the first couple of years.) Julia p.s. I'm wondering how many kids Mike Lee has, because it gets more interesting the more you have I sincerely \*hope*\ that the answer is zero, and also that he is single, otherwise I feel very sorry for some poor unfortunate woman and some innocent children . . . -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: ShrubCo Plans to Increase Indentured-Servitude Age from 25 to 34
At 07:50 PM 5/4/04, Robert Seeberger wrote: The Apple Never Falls Far From The Tree Maru The real trick is getting it to boot up afterward . . . Unlike Cats, Computers Seldom Land Lightly On Their Feet And Immediately Start Running Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Audio CDs
On 5 May 2004, at 3:06 am, Kevin Tarr wrote: I know the underlying science for representing analog sound in a digital format but I'm missing something important. More than a few new and older* CDs are quiet. *(Stuff originally recorded back in the 70s, i.e. not new music). If I go from the radio to a CD, I have to turn the volume up to get the same (seemingly) sound level. This is in many cars, or home players. That may be bad example; but I also notice different sound levels when I take songs from different CDs and make my own collection. So the question: is there a reason this is so? Do they figure on better sound reproduction if the amplifier is producing the volume, rather than the source? Or is it to have more head room, space for loud crashes? Something else? CDs only use 16-bits per channel. This is enough to please most of the people most of the time but is largely an artifact of the technology available when the format was introduced (20 years ago). Radio (non-digital) has even less bandwidth, so compression is used to narrow the dynamic range. --But recording studios go up to 11 (well 24-bit :)) -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons. - Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Audio CDs
- Original Message - From: Kevin Tarr [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2004 9:06 PM Subject: Audio CDs I know the underlying science for representing analog sound in a digital format but I'm missing something important. More than a few new and older* CDs are quiet. *(Stuff originally recorded back in the 70s, i.e. not new music). If I go from the radio to a CD, I have to turn the volume up to get the same (seemingly) sound level. This is in many cars, or home players. That may be bad example; but I also notice different sound levels when I take songs from different CDs and make my own collection. So the question: is there a reason this is so? Do they figure on better sound reproduction if the amplifier is producing the volume, rather than the source? Or is it to have more head room, space for loud crashes? Something else? Maybe someone can verify this, but I seem to recall that most people use Goldwave to normalise home made recordings. (Among other things). Goldwave was used in the making of Cyberian Khatru and will be used on The Second Intention and the Revelation X project. (These are the music projects I am involved in.) xponent AMYCD.com Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Star Wars day
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 5/4/2004 2:40:58 PM US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Or so I was informed on another mailing list. May the fourth be with you! Julia So, after you celebrate, what are you going to do with that kitchen sink full of mayonnaise? Um, use it to make guacamole for tomorrow? Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Disturbing evidence of torture
Gautam Mukunda wrote: That aside, I have to say that I find myself virtually incapable of thinking about this rationally. I am _quivering_ with rage about this. This is personal to me. I volunteered to go there almost a year ago. _Two weeks ago_ they called me to say that my security clearance was being processed and that a final offer might be imminent. Just by _volunteering_ I probably did permanent damage to my career at McKinsey, which was not a small thing to give up. These fucking idiots have permanently stained the effort of every one of my friends over there, of every _person_ working there in both the army and the civilian service. If the army decided to shoot them in the main street of _Baghdad_ I wouldn't be upset. At the risk of drawing a lot of fire from all quarters: It occurred to me that perhaps the thing to do is to identify all the people who participated in the torture-for-amusement, and turn them over to the Iraqi people. Some sort of justice (or at least poetic justice) would be served, and it would be a hell of a deterrent against anyone else doing anything remotely like it for a good, long time. Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: ShrubCo Plans to Increase Indentured-Servitude Age from 25 to 34
- Original Message - From: Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2004 9:28 PM Subject: Re: ShrubCo Plans to Increase Indentured-Servitude Age from 25 to 34 At 07:50 PM 5/4/04, Robert Seeberger wrote: The Apple Never Falls Far From The Tree Maru The real trick is getting it to boot up afterward . . . Unlike Cats, Computers Seldom Land Lightly On Their Feet And Immediately Start Running Maru Oh they are running alright!!! They just aren't useable for a few minutes. G xponent Meow Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: ShrubCo Plans to Increase Indentured-Servitude Age from 25 to 34
Tom Beck wrote: Will she then become a commercial airline pilot later on? Would YOU fly in a plane piloted by that drunk, selfish, spoiled brat? No. That was the point. :) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Winning the War on Terror
-- From: Gary Denton [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Who are you responding to? Don't snip context. --- Sorry, gmail always stacks the conversation based on subject and provides no easy way to snip headers. The following was what I was responding to. Windows and other operating systems have copy/paste built in from the ground up. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Disturbing evidence of torture
At 10:26 PM 04/05/04 -0500, ulia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip At the risk of drawing a lot of fire from all quarters: It occurred to me that perhaps the thing to do is to identify all the people who participated in the torture-for-amusement, and turn them over to the Iraqi people. Some sort of justice (or at least poetic justice) would be served, and it would be a hell of a deterrent against anyone else doing anything remotely like it for a good, long time. As *rational* as your suggestion is, I doubt it would prevent this kind of abuse. Understanding where it comes from *might* help people figure out ways to prevent it. Brutality of this sort is hardly a new problem, one could say it is a *feature* of human behavior. It comes out in other places, like the near impossibility of stamping out hazing in college. In fact, I make a claim that the punisher side of hazing and the brutality that went on in that Iraq prison are manifestations of the same underlying conditionally turned on psychological mechanism. I don't have a name for it, but it is the counterpart to capture-bonding also known as Stockholm Syndrome. I have written a lot about capture-bonding, of which Elizabeth Smart and Patty Hearst are both examples. Other examples of the same psychological trait being expressed are battered wife syndrome, army basic training, and even sex practices like BD. In real short form, for millions of years tribes captured people (mostly women) from other tribes. Those who had the psychological trait to reorient to their captors often became ancestors, the ones who didn't became breakfast. A million years of this kind of live or die filter makes the trait almost as much of an instinct as walking. A longer version of this argument is part of the article here: http://human-nature.com/nibbs/02/cults.html If humans respond to capture and abuse by bonding, then the trait to abuse captives is likely to have also been selected. The argument isn't as obvious as the survival link with capture-bonding. But it figures that in a world where 10% of an average tribe's females were captured, those who had the genes for an instinct for the brutal behavior needed to capture and turn on the capture-bonding trait in the captives left more descendents than those without it. And, like the capture-bonding trait, over a long enough time the trait to induce capture-bonding would become nearly universal. I.e., it would be triggered in response to the conditions needed to turn it on. I suspect that's the evolutionary origin of the trait expressed by the guards in Zimbardo's famous Stanford prison experiment. http://www.prisonexp.org/ The trait to be brutal gets automatically switched on by the mere presence of captives. I am open to a name for the trait to induce capture-bonding (Or we could use the acronym TTICB.) Of course prisons didn't exist in tribal times. A captive escaped, became part of the tribe or was killed. So in the stone age a brief brutality episode (like the few days to a week duration of hazing) would be followed by integrating the captive into a tribe. Prisons keep the TTICB switched on, but frustrated. Very unnatural, like hazing that is not permitted to let up on the targets. These conditionally switched on mechanisms (like the mechanism for inducing wars I posted about a few weeks ago) operate below the thinking or rational level. Indeed, the rational level is likely to make up grotesque justifications for the brutal behavior induced by switched on lower level psychological mechanisms. So while it might help, the prospect of punishment isn't likely to greatly deter brutality against prisoners Back to the question of how to prevent this sort of abuse. Even the most brutal would be reluctant to do it on camera. Perhaps as David Brin has suggested in The Transparent Society guards and prisoners should both be wearing web cameras. At least if they were being recorded all the time and watched live some of the time these abuses would not go on for most of a year before being exposed. Keith ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
