texascavers Digest 8 Aug 2011 18:41:41 -0000 Issue 1364
Topics (messages 18311 through 18318):
Re: where a man can breathe free, and relevance to caves
18311 by: Geary Schindel
18315 by: Fritz Holt
Re: book review: Lew Bicking
18312 by: Andy Gluesenkamp
18314 by: Alex Sproul
Two birds with one stone
18313 by: BMorgan994.aol.com
18316 by: Andy Gluesenkamp
Re: was where a man can breathe free, now where a woman can stop getting
political viewpoints on CaveTex
18317 by: Diana Tomchick
18318 by: R D Milhollin
Administrivia:
To subscribe to the digest, e-mail:
<[email protected]>
To unsubscribe from the digest, e-mail:
<[email protected]>
To post to the list, e-mail:
<[email protected]>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
--- Begin Message ---
Mark,
The bacteria example is one that Dr. Bartlett uses in his lecture. Good
example.
I do take offense to the texting issue, if Governor Perry thinks it's OK to
text while driving because he doesn't want government involved in a person's
day to day business, Therefore, it must be safe for the non-texting public.
LOL.
Geary
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Minton [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, August 08, 2011 11:08 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [Texascavers] where a man can breathe free, and relevance to caves
At 10:06 AM 8/6/2011, Geary Schindel wrote:
>Couple of interesting facts from the video. Bartlett talks about
>the rule of 70 for doubling of exponential growth (any growth over
>zero). That is, take the yearly growth rate of a city, say San
>Antonio at approximately 2.8 percent and divide that in to 70 and
>you get the doubling rate. That is, in 25 years, the San Antonio
>area will double its population to around 4 million people.
A useful way to look at this type of population growth is to
consider a bucket of bacteria that doubles in whatever time span. Up
until the bucket is half full they can look around and say there's no
problem; we have plenty of room. Then all of a sudden the bucket
goes from half to completely full in one generation. It can happen
before you know it.
>I believe that we have way too many people on the planet and
>anything we can do to eliminate some of the dummies, I'm all
>for. That is why I'm opposed to mandatory seat belt laws, child car
>seats, texting bans, and helmet laws. If you aren't smart enough to
>do these things out of common sense, you probably shouldn't be reproducing.
The trouble with some of that logic, like texting bans, is
that the perpetrator can easily survive the accident while the
innocent bystander who gets crashed into may die. There's no
protective logic in that one.
Mark Minton
Please reply to [email protected]
Permanent email address is [email protected]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Visit our website: http://texascavers.com
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected]
For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Geary,
I like and agree with your views on limiting population growth in the USA. Let
the population explosion occur on the rest of the planet but not here. Adults
should be encouraged and given an incentive to have smaller families. Two
children should be enough for most citizens. I like your tax suggestions
relating to children. Our system is terribly broken (in many areas) when the
tax paying and voting citizens allow our governments to reward unwed mothers
for having children. This is not compassion but stupid intervention into
personal lives which promotes decay in our society and unreasonable taxation to
support it. Unfortunately, this and other intelligent actions and choices will
not occur, at least not in my lifetime. The US has far too many entitlements
that need reform. That includes social security and medicare for future
generations. Geezers like me, and you if you are lucky, have paid all of our
adult lives and have earned the benefits. But what about those who have yet to
pay into the system? They could be taxed less on their future earned wages with
a lesser entitlement benefit and encouraged to have individual retirement plans
in the private sector. Due to misguided government policies we cannot (will
not) stop the flow of illegal immigrants which are violating our federal
immigration laws. The feds and states should vigorously enforce our laws and
make them more stringent. Even I could come up with a fair way to deal with
those currently in our country illegally. The law (liberally interpreted)
making children of illegal aliens born here citizens should be changed
immediately. I believe the USA is the only nation with this policy. Some argue
that this policy is not really a hard and fast written law. I think my soap box
just collapsed so I will get back to work on something more productive to earn
some money to help the "poor folks".
Fritz
________________________________
From: Geary Schindel [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Saturday, August 06, 2011 9:07 AM
To: 'Rod Goke'; [email protected]
Subject: RE: [Texascavers] where a man can breathe free, and relevance to caves
Rod,
Thanks for the wonderful analysis on population growth, you are right on the
money. For folks that are interested in this area, I would refer you to a
video lecture by Dr. Albert Bartlett, retired professor from the University of
Colorado in Boulder titled Arithmetic, Population, and Energy. You can
purchase it for about $20 from the Univ of Col. Bookstore or can down load it
in segments from YouTube. Scary stuff, we showed it as a Bexar Grotto program
one night. I have a copy if anyone wants to borrow it. Garrett Hardin also
has some very well written papers on this subject. You can view them all on
line at the Garrett Hardin Society.
Couple of interesting facts from the video. Bartlett talks about the rule of
70 for doubling of exponential growth (any growth over zero). That is, take
the yearly growth rate of a city, say San Antonio at approximately 2.8 percent
and divide that in to 70 and you get the doubling rate. That is, in 25 years,
the San Antonio area will double its population to around 4 million people.
That means we'll need twice the roads, schools, water supply, land area, food,
police force, court, jails, parking spaces, energy, etc. This is not
sustainable. The U.S. doubling rate is approximately 60 years if I remember
correctly, which means we'll have 600 million people by 2070.
China is the only major country that has addressed its population problem by
limiting growth to a one child policy (they are thinking about dropping this
policy - big mistake). Currently, immigration is the major driving force in
population growth in the U.S. as I believe we are the only first world country
with an increasing population. Births for native born citizens is at zero
population growth. Maybe the U.S. should start to limit Its population
growth through economic means. If you believe that some people on welfare have
more kids for an increased welfare check, it is reasonable to believe that the
middle class has more kids for an increased tax break. If we remove the tax
breaks for kids, and actually have a tax increase for having kids with a
graduated rate for having more than 2, it will help to decrease the population
growth. The tax rate should also be an exponential number, have more than 3
and you probably can't afford it.
So, we should also limit immigration if we want to limit population growth.
There are consequences to limiting immigration such as it limits the best and
brightest that want to come to this country, and also removes a cheaper labor
source, but it also decreases all of the problems associated with growth as
noted above. This year, the world will pass the 7 billion mark after passing
the 6 billion mark in 1999.
Scary stuff, I've been concerned about population growth for more than 20 years
and it is why I'm a Neo Social Darwinist - I believe that we have way too many
people on the planet and anything we can do to eliminate some of the dummies,
I'm all for. That is why I'm opposed to mandatory seat belt laws, child car
seats, texting bans, and helmet laws. If you aren't smart enough to do these
things out of common sense, you probably shouldn't be reproducing.
Population and population growth has a major negative impact on our quality of
life and natural resources, including cave and karst regions.
G
From: Rod Goke [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Saturday, August 06, 2011 5:51 AM
To: [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Texascavers] where a man can breathe free, and relevance to caves
Regarding Gainesville Florida, Sleaze wrote,
"We don't want no stinking roads either."
Austin tried that for about 2 or 3 decades, during which the attitude of local
"environmentalists" towards roadway construction/expansion was:
Don't build it, and hope they won't come.
They opposed road building on the theory that more roads would encourage more
people to move here. The problem was that people came here anyway, resulting in
severe traffic congestion problems, as bad or worst than those often found in
much larger cities.
Unfortunately, this kind of failure to provide workable long range solutions
often results when people practice superficial environmentalism, addressing
only the local effects and symptoms of population growth while shying away from
any discussion of the underlying causes of these problems. It's not hard to see
why people find this approach tempting. It's relatively easy for activists
groups to drum up support and claim political victories by promoting petty
"feel good" measures with no powerful opposition and little, if any, beneficial
effect. It takes far more courage and perseverance to address the fundamental
underlying population issues, since almost any measure that would really help
to alleviate overpopulation is likely to encounter strong opposition from one
or more influential groups. Different interest groups tend to object to
different measures on various grounds, involving political, religious,
ideological, and/or business interests, but almost any suggested solution is
liable to get you attacked and demonized by someone. Consequently, most groups
with environmental interest prefer to focus on the symptoms and ignore the
cause, as if population growth were an inevitable force of nature, beyond the
control of human beings. Never mind the obvious fact that population growth is
entirely due to human action. How many times have we heard people quote
population growth projections as inevitable facts about our future and then
proceed to talk about how they think we should deal with the consequences of
that growth? Why does no one seriously discuss the possibility of limiting
population growth to prevent undesirable consequences?
If any of you are wondering what this has to do with caves or are tempted to
think of it as "off topic" then think again about the various cave related
environmental and access issues that clearly are "on topic" for Texascavers. A
large portion of these issues, probably most of them, are directly related to
human population. For example, do you care about the effects of development
near caves, including both environmental impacts and the effects of development
on cave access? What do you think drives the demand for that development? Do
you care about the effects on caves of quarrying, mining, or oil and gas
production? What do you think drives the demand for these resources? Do you
care about the quality and quantity of ground water, including that found in
caves? What do you think influences the amount of pollution entering the
aquifer and the amount of water that is pumped from it? Do you care about the
effects of human visitation on caves and about the access restrictions that
sometimes are imposed to limit those effects? What do you think affects the
number of people seeking access? All of these, and undoubtedly more, cave
related issues are directly affected by human population density. If these cave
related effects of population growth are considered "on topic", how can we
possibly dismiss the underlying cause as "off topic", unless, of course, it's
just a cowardly attempt to avoid controversy about a relevant, but potentially
contentious, issue?
Rod
P.S. By the way, Sleaze, I was one of those graduate students who moved from
Gainesville to Austin in 1973 for my first full time job in my profession. I
would not say that "Gainesville is the Austin of Florida", because, although
both are university towns, Austin is much more. Even at that time, Austin was
(and still is) the state capitol, a center for high tech industry, and a
regional music center, attracting musicians from many surrounding states in
addition to Texas. The population of Austin at that time was approximately a
quarter million (much smaller than it is now), but the University of Texas was
so large (about 50,000 students) that it still gave Austin a university town
atmosphere. At that time, I was impressed with the exceptional variety of
influences and activities available in Austin for a city that small. I moved
away from Austin in early '74 and returned in '84, finding that it had grown
surprisingly larger but still was not a bad place to live. Now Austin still has
advantages over many other cities its size, but in my opinion, it has grown far
beyond its optimal size, and quality of life in the entire central Texas region
continues to deteriorate from excessive population growth. I'm sure there are
business interests who, like the purveyors of pyramid schemes, equate
exponential growth with prosperity. For ordinary citizens, however, it means
worse congestion, greater pollution, higher taxes, less freedom, and greater
competition for limited natural resources.
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
Sent: Aug 5, 2011 3:49 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Texascavers] where a man can breathe free
In a message dated 8/5/2011 4:12:19 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
writes:
If all the people fretting over the numerous environmental and social
problems resulting from overpopulation were to focus instead on the primary
underlying cause, we might reverse this trend and see real progress towards
long range solutions and improving quality of life for future generations
Amen! Here in Hogtown the living is still easy, the moss hangs from the
live oaks and all is well until the Students return. Gainesville is the Austin
of Florida, but the big difference is that there are damned near two
million Texacans in Austin but only about 250,000 gators in the Hogtown metro
area. The reason for that is that we don't want no stinking jobs or new
businesses unless they are directly related to University of Florida biotech
spinoffs. As soon as they become successful they move to Austin taking the
redundant grad students with them. We make it a point to screw every developer
who sticks his head out of a hole. We often lose, but we still cost the
developers millions every time they try. We don't want no stinking roads
either. The bad news is the dawning of the age of biomass. It seems we have way
too many trees, so the plan is to burn them in place of coal. After they
cut down all the trees maybe I'll move to Detroit. I hear there are wide
open spaces out there where a man can breathe free.
Sleaze
--------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our
website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail:
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
For additional commands, e-mail:
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Well,
You absolutely must read Carl Hiassen's book, Sick Puppy. A fictional
portayal of the guv in question plays a prominent role.
Andy
Andrew G. Gluesenkamp, Ph.D.
700 Billie Brooks Drive
Driftwood, Texas 78619
(512) 799-1095
[email protected]
--- On Mon, 8/8/11, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:
From: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Re: [Texascavers] book review: Lew Bicking
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Date: Monday, August 8, 2011, 11:29 AM
Fla. Guvs. SKINK = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_Tyree
Tyree was Governor of Florida in the 1970s. He was everything desirable in a
candidate: a native of Florida, a college football star, and a decorated
Vietnam veteran. He was dazzlingly handsome, charismatic, and articulate. He
was also a former English professor at the University of Florida, though
politically most people saw this as a handicap rather than an asset.
To the surprise of the Florida establishment, he was also one of the few, if
not the only, honest men to hold the office. After he turned down a bribe from
real estate developers, the developers assumed he was holding out for more
money, and came back offering a larger bribe, along with a foolproof scheme for
concealing the money. To their astonishment, the governor not only refused
again, but had them arrested in an F.B.I. sting.
Tyree was also vehemently opposed to runaway growth in Florida, and gained
national recognition for his passionate speeches and legislative proposals to
discourage tourism, curtail land development, and protect the environment. (For
example, one of his proposed laws would have required any boat driver who
killed a manatee to immediately forfeit his boat, pay a $10,000 fine or go to
jail for forty-five days, and bury the dead animal himself at a public
ceremony).
Appalled, a group of Florida special interests pooled their resources to
neutralize the governor politically, by bribing majorities in the state cabinet
and the legislature to ignore or reject all of his initiatives.
Years later, the executive assistant to the current governor reviews Tyree’s
history, and marvels at the futility of his struggle:
As popular as Clinton Tyree had been with the common folk of Florida, he stood
no chance – none whatsoever – of disabling the machinery of greed and
converting the legislature into a body of foresight and honest ethics. It was
boggling to think a sane person would even try.
On the same day that the crooked developers who had tried to bribe Tyree were
convicted, but punished with nothing more than probation, the legislature voted
unanimously (except for the governor) to sell the original wildlife preserve
that they’d been after to another developer. On that day, Tyree quit and
disappeared from the Governor's mansion. At first, Tyree was believed
kidnapped, until a notarized letter of resignation was sent to the Capitol and
verified by the FBI.
He became a wild hermit, living first in Harney County (a fictional Florida
county), where he adopted the name "Skink,” and was simply viewed as an
eccentric, albeit a potentially violent one.
Over the years, he makes infrequent appearances over South Florida, becoming
something of an urban legend.
Aug 8, 2011 11:17:10 AM, [email protected] wrote:
At 10:32 AM 8/6/2011, Mixon Bill wrote:
>My favorite
>summing up was written by Squire Lewis on encountering Bicking in
>Mexico after the 1966 convention: "Lew's only traveling and survival
>equipment consists of a small Kelty pack whose sole contents are the
>largest Spanish dictionary every printed--about a 20-pounder--and a
>box of Mexican crackers. . . . His only clothes are those he wears,
>and he obviously has some warped goal of not taking them off--ever--
>for washing or any other purpose. . . . He has gotten all the long way
>from Baltimore to California to [Mexico City] with nothing but his
>great dictionary and his crackers. We have never seen him spend any
>money--not any--he may well not have any.
That reminds me of a statement attributed, I believe, to a
governor of Florida. In reference to hikers or whomever coming to
visit being good for the economy, he said something like, "They come
with only one pair of underwear and a five-dollar bill and don't
change either."
Mark Minton
Please reply to [email protected]
Permanent email address is [email protected]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Visit our website: http://texascavers.com
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected]
For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
--------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our
website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail:
[email protected] For additional commands, e-mail:
[email protected]
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
>Tyree was Governor of Florida in the 1970s. He was everything
>desirable in a candidate...
Not so fast, Ted! I, for one, have read a lot of Carl Hiaasen, too, in
which Tyree is a frequent (and wonderful) character.
Yes, you acknowledged your plagiarism with your Wikipedia link,
but who actually follows those (or believes everything Wiki says, for
that matter)?
Alex
--
Alex Sproul
NSS 8086RL/FE
NSS Webmaster
www.caves.org
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
So you get two birds with one stone, maybe more if he hits a schoolbus
while searching for kiddie porn on his smartphone. What's the prob?
Sleaze
>I believe that we have way too many people on the planet and
>anything we can do to eliminate some of the dummies, I'm all
>for. That is why I'm opposed to mandatory seat belt laws, child car
>seats, texting bans, and helmet laws. If you aren't smart enough to
>do these things out of common sense, you probably shouldn't be
reproducing.
The trouble with some of that logic, like texting bans, is
that the perpetrator can easily survive the accident while the
innocent bystander who gets crashed into may die. There's no
protective logic in that one.
Mark Minton
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
The problem is dipsh*ts who think that even joking about killing children is
funny. Don't even get me started about mandatory car seats for kids: dipsh*t
parents doesn't mean the kids deserve to die for their mistakes.
Don't like living on a crowded planet? Take a deep breath and hold it...
forever. Whining about it on texcavers is hardly proactive.
Andy
Andrew G. Gluesenkamp, Ph.D.
700 Billie Brooks Drive
Driftwood, Texas 78619
(512) 799-1095
[email protected]
--- On Mon, 8/8/11, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:
From: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: [Texascavers] Two birds with one stone
To: [email protected]
Date: Monday, August 8, 2011, 11:52 AM
So you get two birds with one stone, maybe more if he hits a schoolbus while
searching for kiddie porn on his smartphone. What's the prob?
Sleaze
>I believe that we have way too many people on the planet and
>anything we can do to eliminate some of the dummies, I'm all
>for. That is why I'm opposed to mandatory seat belt laws, child car
>seats, texting bans, and helmet laws. If you aren't smart enough to
>do these things out of common sense, you probably shouldn't be reproducing.
The trouble with some of that logic, like texting bans, is
that the perpetrator can easily survive the accident while the
innocent bystander who gets crashed into may die. There's no
protective logic in that one.
Mark Minton
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Please, let's stop with this thread now, it's getting old and tiresome. I
became a caver because I liked going into caves and I liked the scientific
aspects of caving. I did not sign up for CaveTex to receive mail that had
nothing to do with caves.
While I enjoy a good political rant as well as the next person, I don't enjoy
it in this forum, especially when people start spouting off about eugenics, an
ill-thought out and dangerous "social philosophy." And if you don't understand
why I should find eugenics to be distasteful, dangerous and disgusting, then
grab me in person at TCR (a suitable forum for such discussions) and I'll let
you know.
Diana
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Diana R. Tomchick
Associate Professor
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Department of Biochemistry
5323 Harry Hines Blvd.
Rm. ND10.214B
Dallas, TX 75390-8816, U.S.A.
Email: [email protected]
214-645-6383 (phone)
214-645-6353 (fax)
________________________________
UT Southwestern Medical Center
The future of medicine, today.
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Here here! This discussion was off-topic from the beginning. Making awkward
stretches in order to appear cave-related is cheating. There is the O-T Cavers
list out theree, barely used for what it was intended, how soon we forget.
Back to real discussions about caves, cavers, and caving.
________________________________
From: Diana Tomchick <[email protected]>
To: Cave Tex <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, August 8, 2011 12:31 PM
Subject: [Texascavers] RE: was where a man can breathe free, now where a woman
can stop getting political viewpoints on CaveTex
Please, let's stop with this thread now, it's getting old and tiresome. I
became a caver because I liked going into caves and I liked the scientific
aspects of caving. I did not sign up for CaveTex to receive mail that had
nothing to do with caves.
While I enjoy a good political rant as well as the next person, I don't enjoy
it in this forum, especially when people start spouting off about eugenics, an
ill-thought out and dangerous "social philosophy." And if you don't understand
why I should find eugenics to be distasteful, dangerous and disgusting, then
grab me in person at TCR (a suitable forum for such discussions) and I'll let
you know.
Diana
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Diana R. Tomchick
Associate Professor
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Department of Biochemistry
5323 Harry Hines Blvd.
Rm. ND10.214B
Dallas, TX 75390-8816, U.S.A.
Email: [email protected]
214-645-6383 (phone)
214-645-6353 (fax)
________________________________
UT Southwestern Medical Center
The future of medicine, today.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Visit our website: http://texascavers.com
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected]
For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
--- End Message ---
