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thx1138's comments:
on Technology and Child Pornography Laws
I think it's best to "avoid any imperial entaglements."
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on Technology and Child Pornography Laws
Good point Bluewater42.
It would be so easy for some sociopathic spammer, (or the police planting evidence), to post an innocent looking link on a public form. They could even do it on the TOL discussion board. Under the proposed law change, (as I understand it), BOOM, anyone who clicks that hyoertexted is linked to porn, you've seen it, and unless you're somewhat tech savvy you posses it. You are gong to jail.
Don't worry be happy - click here.
I dare you. :)
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on Technology and Child Pornography Laws
When the scanners come to Oregon is John Kroger going to investigate?
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on Technology and Child Pornography Laws
What I want to know is if the new TSA (Transportation Security Authority) airport scanners break child pornography laws? If your child opts out of going through the scanner is the TSA screener going to touch the child's genital areas?
In Britain, the scanners are NOT permitted for use on children under the age of 18. See this link:http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jan/04/new-scanners-child-porn-laws
Seems TSA employees are permitted to do something "under color of law" that would land anyone else in prison.
So far, I have flown two flights with my kids and we went through the old fashioned detector. I am happy to report their respective purities remain intact.
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on The Meaning of Marriage
I hear you, but can't imagine how one would manage the emotions and logistics of two or more spouses. Personally, I am a dude with a hetero orientation and can only barely manage to have a relationship with one woman at a time. So far so good - knock on wood.
Polygamy, from πολύς γάμος polys gamos, translated literally in Late Greek as "often married."1
Given that etymology lots of Westerners, both men and women, are involved in two or more marriages with children. Mother has children with one father then divorces him and starts a second family with another man or vice versa. Isn't this the norm now??????!
1. (Zeitzen, Miriam Koktvedgaard (2008). Polygamy: a cross-cultural analysis. Berg. p. 3. ISBN 1845202201. http://books.google.com/books?id=WIzHjpTJgdQC&pg=PA3.)
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on The Meaning of Marriage
I can only think of exceptional situations were you might want the State to be involved - mostly regarding children.
There's a negative externallity experienced by us all (regardless of sexual orientation) when society/taxpayers have to share the cost of raising children from failed marriages or parents that don't adequately support their children. These cost should be internalized i.e. the parents should be forced to bear the cost not you and I.
Also, I've got the 21 century Western bias against pre-arranged child marriages that other cultures find acceptable. I know these types of arrangements are suppose to produce longer lasting marriages. But our marriage system has a structural problem as I have analyzed above. We can solve that with less state involment.
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on The Meaning of Marriage
Marriage has nothing to do with commitment in the eyes of the law.
Instead, marriage is has come to be about the whimsical personal fulfillment that can be judged and changed by either spouse at any time in the marriage. It's the easy in easy out, one size fits all divorce system that created this situation.
Because the contemporary divorce process grants ZERO compensatory value to the commitment, promises, sacrifices, labor, and the complete giving necessary for a marriage to work. No RATIONAL sincere, committed, loving person would get married. There is no incentive to invest the countless self-sacrifices that a lasting marriage requires when at anytime a party can keep her profits and sever her liabilities with minor costs.
It's the state taking over the marriage licensing and contract dissolution that's created this perverse situation. What's the government's compelling interest in regulating who one loves and with whom one wants to spend their life? There's a place for laws that require consenting, informed adults. Beyond that, it's a private matter.
George and Martha Washington did not need a marriage license.
Most Americans were not required to get then until the mid-1800s.
Informed consenting adults (straight, gay, whatever) should make their own PRIVATE marriage contracts with dissolution clauses, care plans for children, and means to enforce the contract if someone defaults built in. Getting ths State out of our most intimate business could save our marriages.
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on Toxic Water?
Jacob,
Before you seriously go adding drugs to the water supply.
I recommend you watch this film:
THX 1138, an ealy George Lucas film. With all due respect to Star Wars, I consider it his most profound, before he went commercialized.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THX_1138
The film is set in an underground city of the future were the use of mind-altering drugs is mandatory.
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on Toxic Water?
Sorry I didn't get this posted before the show. It's a BIG reason to be skeptical about legal/government Chromium 6 policy action.
Cancer rates were actually LOWER than expected in Erin Brokovich's town Hinkley during the time of the lawsuit.
The California Cancer Registry has now completed three studies that show cancer rates remained normal in the Hinkley area from 1988 to 2008. PG and E paid a record $333 million to settle a class-action suit in 1996 during this period.
Below is a quotation from a recent the Los Angeles Times story:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-hinkley-cancer-20101213,0,7881571.story
"From 1996 to 2008, 196 cancers were identified among residents of the census tract that includes Hinkley — a slightly lower number than the 224 cancers that would have been expected given its demographic characteristics, said epidemiologist John Morgan, who conducted the California Cancer Registry survey."
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on Toxic Water?
We should add green tea to the water supply!
The health benefits of green tea go on and on and on with no with contraindications!
It helps with many cancers, diabetes, high cholesterol, periodontal disease, osteoporosis and bone loss, weight loss, wrinkles, diseases of cognition, viral and bacterial infections. It helps prevent liver damage from alcohol. It even prevents hair loss.
It binds with copper and iron so it makes the water softer.
References
* MedlinePlus: Green Tea (Camellia Sinensis)
* "BMC Pharmacology"; Effect of Green Tea on Blood Glucose Levels and Serum Proteomic Patterns in Diabetic (DB/DB) Mice and on Glucose Metabolism in Healthy Humans; Hiroshi Tsuneki, Mitsuyo Ishizuka, Miki Terasawa, Jin-Bin Wu, Toshiyasu Sasaoka and Ikuko Kimura; Aug. 26, 2004
* "Archives of Internal Medicine"; Cholesterol-Lowering Effect of a Theaflavin-Enriched Green Tea Extract: A Randomized Controlled Trial; DJ Maron, et al; June 23, 2003
* "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition"; Tea Drinking is Associated With Benefits on Bone Density in Older Women; A Devine, JM Hodgson, IM Dick, RL Prince; October 2007
* "Antiviral Research"; Antiviral Effect of Catechins in Green Tea on Influence Virus; JM Song, KH Lee, BL Seong; Aug. 9, 2005
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on Winter Depression
Thanks for your guest Dr Alfred L.
I'll try just regular light bulbs. Those other bulbs are $5.00 a piece.
posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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on Winter Depression
I have Seasonal Affective Disorder.
What i do is put severall full spectrum light bulbs in my office at work. I also have a table lamp that I have rigged so the shade directs the light sideways. If i feel I need more exposure I use the table lamp in 10 minute increments per session per day.
A word to the wise: it's very easy to overexpose yourself. No full spectrum lights at night! You will not get tan or a sunburn from over exposure you WILL create insomnia!. It surprized me how powerfull the effect was.
The other things I do is go to a sunny spot for my holiday vacation and supplement Vitamin D3 during fall and winter.
Dont want to sound like and advert but I bought the bulbs from the
light bulb lady (That's the name of the store)
3901 N Mississippi Ave,
Portland OR 97227 (503) 281-0453
posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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on Somali Communities
I don't believe the FBI stopped any actual terrorist plot at Pioneer Courthouse Square, but they have helped inspire a real one. There was no real terrorism until after the FBI pulled its stunt with Mohamud.
This arson is clearly a real terrorist act.
What I want to know is if the folks at the mosque sometimes attended by Mohamud hold the FBI in some way responsible for the fire?
posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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on Bomb Plot in Portland
Are you going to name the FBI as co-conspirators, or accessories to attempted murder in your lawsuit? Clearly they had a role.
posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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on Bomb Plot in Portland
Glenn Greenwald points out in his article Emily directed me to above:
Meanwhile, in Oregon, the mosque sometimes attended by Mohamud was victimized today by arson. So the FBI did not stop any actual Terrorist plots, but they may have helped inspire one (my emphasis).
The FBI controls the narative right now. That's why we have trials.
Another quote from the article:
But it may also just as easily be the case that the FBI -- as they've done many times in the past -- found some very young, impressionable, disaffected, hapless, aimless, inept loner; created a plot it then persuaded/manipulated/entrapped him to join, essentially turning him into a Terrorist; and then patted itself on the back once it arrested him for having thwarted a "Terrorist plot" which, from start to finish, was entirely the FBI's own concoction. Having stopped a plot which it itself manufactured, the FBI then publicly touts -- and an uncritical media amplifies -- its "success" to the world, thus proving both that domestic Terrorism from Muslims is a serious threat and the Government's vast surveillance powers -- current and future new ones -- are necessary."
posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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on Bomb Plot in Portland
When you press the link under the help tab to change the passwords, etc. one get this message:
404
Not Found
The requested URL /accounts/password/reset/ was not found on this server.
Would you guys fix this link please?
Whilst you're at it. There is no podcast for the show below I can find. I'd like to listen to that show. Can you post something please.
A Mighty Wind in Union CountyAIR DATE: Friday, November 12th 2010
posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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on Bomb Plot in Portland
I guess it should be THWARTS not THWART.
Anyhow more power to Greenwald and Salon! I'll be interested to know how the FBI explains this is not entrappment?
I'll be even more interested in what rights are taken away, or what new inspection procedures us genereal public have to endure?
For some reason Portlland Oregon does not have an intrusive xray machine in the airport. I'll bet we get one now with litle protest. How about random searches of cargo vans or back packs?
posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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on Bomb Plot in Portland
The headlines should read:
FBI THWART THEIR OWN CAR BOMB
I can't be the only skeptic who thinks this is a staged terror stunt. The FBI does not have the right to exploit misguided people and call it a failed attempt to kill innocent Americans. I am certain this fellow did not have the wherewithal to construct a bomb on his own.
The only groups that seem to be actually building bombs and conducting terrorist operations are our own government agencies. Thank goodness they are using "inert" bombs. At what point do they cross the line?
I am not fearful of a real terrorist attack by actual terrorist. I am fearful that not enough people can see through this puerile attempt to incite fear and induce compliance. The outrage should not be at the patsy, but at our own government for putting on such shows. What I am fearful of is that there will be no one to stand up when they cross the line an actually let someone set off a live bomb.
posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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on Math Appeal
I agree it's predictable. No amount of failure ever changes things in public schools in the US. The incentives are too perverse to have positive academic outcomes.
Any public outrage for poor performance is followed by an increase in the education monopoly. Education is a very profitable monopoly who's customers are supplied by the police power of the state. The investment in education only increase when it does poorly. When schools do poorly what else can one expect but cries and calls for more funding - for the children. It's inevitable that the monopoly will expand demanding more and more tax dollars and the outcomes will not improve or continue to deteriorate.
Below are links to two PISA studies for 2003 and 2006 showing pretty much the same mediocre scores for the US.
http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/pisa2003highlights_2.asp In 2003:U.S. performance in mathematics literacy and problem solving was lower than the average performance for most OECD countries (table 2 and table 3).
2006: On average, U.S. students scored lower than the OECD average on the mathematics literacy scale (474 vs. 498). http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/pisa2006highlights.asp
Possibly solutions?
Less is more: Take a look at Finland. Finland has scored in the number one spot or in the 95th percentile over the last decade. Not just in math but in science and all academic endeavors. What are they doing? Compulsory education does not start until children are 7 years old. The entire Finish school sequence is NOT 12 years. It's only 9 years. Not only are the Fins among the best in world they are doing it more cheaply and in less time. This is not an anomaly. Swedes don't score as high as the Fins but are close. There school sequence is 9 years also. And the children start a age 7 as well.
You'd think Americans would be all over that. Instead we've got an entrenched educational/union bureaucratic complex that's second only in goverment funidng to the Department of Defense. Poor academic means more funding equals job security. Too many people have a financial stake in academic mediocrity for there ever to be real academic improvement.
I'll bet you in 3, 6, 9 years the new study with the same head lines or worse will come out. The money given to solve the education crisis will be even greater. And we can listen to this same show again.
posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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on All About Gratitude
Mt Hood is an active volcano in Oregon.
The last serious eruption was in the 1790, with minor activity reported in the mid-1800's. I was not an I witness but that's what I've been told.
I am thankful it has not erupted while I've been living nearby.
posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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