To contact us Click HERE
Source: Academy of Environmental Medicine
The American Academy of Environmental Medicine
Statement on WiFi in Schools
Adverse health effects from wireless radio frequency fields, such as learning disabilities, altered immune responses, and headaches, clearly exist and are well documented in the scientific literature. Safer technology, such as use of hard-wiring, is strongly recommended in schools.
Approved by the American Academy of Environmental Medicine Board of Directors on October 3, 2012.
31 Aralık 2012 Pazartesi
Young Writer's Learning Experience at the 2011 Milan Bluegrass Festival
To contact us Click HERE
Okay, I'm not going to sit here and lie to you all and say that I'm a big fan of bluegrass music. I'm not. (For reference, if I was writing this to a group of my friends its very possible I wouldn't say "lie" in the previous sentence, but instead say "front." Sorry.) But I also don't dislike bluegrass music. Its influences can be seen in some of the music I listen to in the terms of prevalent vocal harmonies and finger-picked acoustic guitar. See: Fleet Foxes, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
Plus, I really like "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" That's a really great movie! And that was my first real experience with bluegrass, and some of those songs were really good! But as a I sat and walked around KC Campground on Saturday at the festival, there was something there that to an uninitiated observer hit me more than the music: the atmosphere and the people. I got a chance to talk with one of the bands that performed on Saturday, HeartTown, and they talked a lot about precisely that: the crowd at the Milan Bluegrass Festival is a group of people who love and really know their bluegrass. I've been to shows where there's people there who really care about the band, or at least appreciate their style of music, and then there are people there posturing or just trying to look cool. (I feel like the moral of this post is: Kevin is still kind of young.) For the record, at shows I'm usually near the front shouting along with all of the lyrics, so obviously not one of the people trying to "look cool."
But there was certainly nobody at the Festival who wasn't there to enjoy a long day (or weekend) of bluegrass music. Even when i asked people what acts they liked the best, no one could pick one. "I like them all," was a very common response. "We see these guys basically every week," said Tim Laughlin of HeartTown. "Bluegrass is like a traveling carnival, and we're the carnies," said HeartTown's Darren Beachley.
Okay, I'm not going to sit here and lie to you all and say that I'm a big fan of bluegrass music. I'm not. (For reference, if I was writing this to a group of my friends its very possible I wouldn't say "lie" in the previous sentence, but instead say "front." Sorry.) But I also don't dislike bluegrass music. Its influences can be seen in some of the music I listen to in the terms of prevalent vocal harmonies and finger-picked acoustic guitar. See: Fleet Foxes, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
Plus, I really like "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" That's a really great movie! And that was my first real experience with bluegrass, and some of those songs were really good! But as a I sat and walked around KC Campground on Saturday at the festival, there was something there that to an uninitiated observer hit me more than the music: the atmosphere and the people. I got a chance to talk with one of the bands that performed on Saturday, HeartTown, and they talked a lot about precisely that: the crowd at the Milan Bluegrass Festival is a group of people who love and really know their bluegrass. I've been to shows where there's people there who really care about the band, or at least appreciate their style of music, and then there are people there posturing or just trying to look cool. (I feel like the moral of this post is: Kevin is still kind of young.) For the record, at shows I'm usually near the front shouting along with all of the lyrics, so obviously not one of the people trying to "look cool."
But there was certainly nobody at the Festival who wasn't there to enjoy a long day (or weekend) of bluegrass music. Even when i asked people what acts they liked the best, no one could pick one. "I like them all," was a very common response. "We see these guys basically every week," said Tim Laughlin of HeartTown. "Bluegrass is like a traveling carnival, and we're the carnies," said HeartTown's Darren Beachley.
Ride along with the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office
To contact us Click HERE
I went on a ride along with a deputy of the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday this week. I have been looking forward to it for awhile. As the police and court reporter covering Washtenaw County, I wanted learn more about the sheriff’s department and its methods. I was assigned to ride along with Deputy James Roy, who has been with the sheriff’s department for about five years. He is part of a violent crime unit stationed in Ypsilanti Township, but there are a number of aspects of his job. Deputy Roy explains it himself in this video:
Deputy Roy showed me around Ypsilanti Township and the different areas he regularly patrols, which include neighborhoods like West Willow, some apartment complexes like Village Grove Apartments, and trailer home parks. Part of the reason for the patrols is simply to have a visible police presence in the community. I’m still pretty new to the area so I was seeing quite a few things for the first time. He also talked about the different technology and techniques he uses, and about his own experience as a law enforcement officer.
The different kinds of technology used by police are among what I learned about on the ride along. Recording equipment is heavily used. Deputy Roy showed me a body microphone held in patrol vehicles. When he leaves the vehicle he clips it onto his uniform, and it provides an audio record such as for interactions with residents and suspects. Patrol vehicles have cameras in them. Footage gets downloaded wirelessly when a vehicle gets to the station, which for him is usually the Ypsilanti Township Civic Center on Huron River Drive.
The sheriff’s department also looked into portable video cameras for deputies to keep on themselves like the microphone. Deputy Roy said he tested a few of these cameras out over the summer, trying to find something that works out good. It needs to be easily portable, he said, because deputies carry plenty of equipment already.
From my own understanding, recording equipment is used both as a record of what happened if needed in court and as a means to protect officers from accusations.
I was also shown the computer deputies connect to their vehicles while on the road. They look like heavily armored laptops. There’s all kinds of features, such as a touch screen and easy to navigate screens that allow deputies to look up information even while on the move. Systems are in place capable of pulling up any driver’s license photographs and mug shots a person may have, allowing deputies to cross reference – useful for determining if somebody has a fake ID. Some of the computers even have a print reader, which is able to pull up this information with the imprint of a finger or thumb.
I also learned quite a bit about Deputy Roy during the ride along. I could tell he was passionate about being part of the sheriff’s department and working to make the community a better place.
“I could do this every day,” he said. “It’s what I always wanted to do.”
Three members of his family are also in law enforcement, two cousins and an uncle, so one explanation for his interest in law enforcement is that it’s simply in his bloodline.
Overall the ride along was a good experience. I’m glad I got to know Deputy Roy. He invited me to do another ride along pretty much whenever, but there were some suggestions like a midnight shift in July. I was told that’s one of the most active times in the year for law enforcement – mostly because people are themselves more active and get out more when its warmer, and this activity peaks in July.
Deputy Roy showed me around Ypsilanti Township and the different areas he regularly patrols, which include neighborhoods like West Willow, some apartment complexes like Village Grove Apartments, and trailer home parks. Part of the reason for the patrols is simply to have a visible police presence in the community. I’m still pretty new to the area so I was seeing quite a few things for the first time. He also talked about the different technology and techniques he uses, and about his own experience as a law enforcement officer.
The different kinds of technology used by police are among what I learned about on the ride along. Recording equipment is heavily used. Deputy Roy showed me a body microphone held in patrol vehicles. When he leaves the vehicle he clips it onto his uniform, and it provides an audio record such as for interactions with residents and suspects. Patrol vehicles have cameras in them. Footage gets downloaded wirelessly when a vehicle gets to the station, which for him is usually the Ypsilanti Township Civic Center on Huron River Drive.
The sheriff’s department also looked into portable video cameras for deputies to keep on themselves like the microphone. Deputy Roy said he tested a few of these cameras out over the summer, trying to find something that works out good. It needs to be easily portable, he said, because deputies carry plenty of equipment already.
From my own understanding, recording equipment is used both as a record of what happened if needed in court and as a means to protect officers from accusations.
I was also shown the computer deputies connect to their vehicles while on the road. They look like heavily armored laptops. There’s all kinds of features, such as a touch screen and easy to navigate screens that allow deputies to look up information even while on the move. Systems are in place capable of pulling up any driver’s license photographs and mug shots a person may have, allowing deputies to cross reference – useful for determining if somebody has a fake ID. Some of the computers even have a print reader, which is able to pull up this information with the imprint of a finger or thumb.
I also learned quite a bit about Deputy Roy during the ride along. I could tell he was passionate about being part of the sheriff’s department and working to make the community a better place.
“I could do this every day,” he said. “It’s what I always wanted to do.”
Three members of his family are also in law enforcement, two cousins and an uncle, so one explanation for his interest in law enforcement is that it’s simply in his bloodline.
Overall the ride along was a good experience. I’m glad I got to know Deputy Roy. He invited me to do another ride along pretty much whenever, but there were some suggestions like a midnight shift in July. I was told that’s one of the most active times in the year for law enforcement – mostly because people are themselves more active and get out more when its warmer, and this activity peaks in July.
It's time to get those potholes filled, Washtenaw County Road Commission
To contact us Click HERE
The most obvious sign of the warm weather we've had the last few weeks can be spotted on Austin Road, west of Saline in Saline Township. The potholes are some of the worst I've driven in quite some time.
They stretch from the west side of the City of Saline and then mostly through Saline Township. Once you get to Bridgewater, most of the nasty potholes stop.
The weather looks pretty nice out, perhaps the county could take their truck and fill some of them...?
It's paczki day: where did you get yours?
To contact us Click HERE
Tomorrow begins the season of Lent for Catholics and many Protestants, a season of fasting and penitence. Which means it's time for the metro Detroit favorite, the paczki.
A Polish favorite, the paczki has gained statewide popularity. I picked mine up at Benny's Bakery in downtown Saline this morning, and the line was the longest I've ever seen at the bakery.
Where did you pick yours up around Washtenaw County today? And who makes the best paczki?
 |
| Breakfast of champions...? |
A Polish favorite, the paczki has gained statewide popularity. I picked mine up at Benny's Bakery in downtown Saline this morning, and the line was the longest I've ever seen at the bakery.
Where did you pick yours up around Washtenaw County today? And who makes the best paczki?
27 Aralık 2012 Perşembe
Young Writer's Learning Experience at the 2011 Milan Bluegrass Festival
To contact us Click HERE
Okay, I'm not going to sit here and lie to you all and say that I'm a big fan of bluegrass music. I'm not. (For reference, if I was writing this to a group of my friends its very possible I wouldn't say "lie" in the previous sentence, but instead say "front." Sorry.) But I also don't dislike bluegrass music. Its influences can be seen in some of the music I listen to in the terms of prevalent vocal harmonies and finger-picked acoustic guitar. See: Fleet Foxes, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
Plus, I really like "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" That's a really great movie! And that was my first real experience with bluegrass, and some of those songs were really good! But as a I sat and walked around KC Campground on Saturday at the festival, there was something there that to an uninitiated observer hit me more than the music: the atmosphere and the people. I got a chance to talk with one of the bands that performed on Saturday, HeartTown, and they talked a lot about precisely that: the crowd at the Milan Bluegrass Festival is a group of people who love and really know their bluegrass. I've been to shows where there's people there who really care about the band, or at least appreciate their style of music, and then there are people there posturing or just trying to look cool. (I feel like the moral of this post is: Kevin is still kind of young.) For the record, at shows I'm usually near the front shouting along with all of the lyrics, so obviously not one of the people trying to "look cool."
But there was certainly nobody at the Festival who wasn't there to enjoy a long day (or weekend) of bluegrass music. Even when i asked people what acts they liked the best, no one could pick one. "I like them all," was a very common response. "We see these guys basically every week," said Tim Laughlin of HeartTown. "Bluegrass is like a traveling carnival, and we're the carnies," said HeartTown's Darren Beachley.
Okay, I'm not going to sit here and lie to you all and say that I'm a big fan of bluegrass music. I'm not. (For reference, if I was writing this to a group of my friends its very possible I wouldn't say "lie" in the previous sentence, but instead say "front." Sorry.) But I also don't dislike bluegrass music. Its influences can be seen in some of the music I listen to in the terms of prevalent vocal harmonies and finger-picked acoustic guitar. See: Fleet Foxes, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
Plus, I really like "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" That's a really great movie! And that was my first real experience with bluegrass, and some of those songs were really good! But as a I sat and walked around KC Campground on Saturday at the festival, there was something there that to an uninitiated observer hit me more than the music: the atmosphere and the people. I got a chance to talk with one of the bands that performed on Saturday, HeartTown, and they talked a lot about precisely that: the crowd at the Milan Bluegrass Festival is a group of people who love and really know their bluegrass. I've been to shows where there's people there who really care about the band, or at least appreciate their style of music, and then there are people there posturing or just trying to look cool. (I feel like the moral of this post is: Kevin is still kind of young.) For the record, at shows I'm usually near the front shouting along with all of the lyrics, so obviously not one of the people trying to "look cool."
But there was certainly nobody at the Festival who wasn't there to enjoy a long day (or weekend) of bluegrass music. Even when i asked people what acts they liked the best, no one could pick one. "I like them all," was a very common response. "We see these guys basically every week," said Tim Laughlin of HeartTown. "Bluegrass is like a traveling carnival, and we're the carnies," said HeartTown's Darren Beachley.
Ride along with the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office
To contact us Click HERE
I went on a ride along with a deputy of the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday this week. I have been looking forward to it for awhile. As the police and court reporter covering Washtenaw County, I wanted learn more about the sheriff’s department and its methods. I was assigned to ride along with Deputy James Roy, who has been with the sheriff’s department for about five years. He is part of a violent crime unit stationed in Ypsilanti Township, but there are a number of aspects of his job. Deputy Roy explains it himself in this video:
Deputy Roy showed me around Ypsilanti Township and the different areas he regularly patrols, which include neighborhoods like West Willow, some apartment complexes like Village Grove Apartments, and trailer home parks. Part of the reason for the patrols is simply to have a visible police presence in the community. I’m still pretty new to the area so I was seeing quite a few things for the first time. He also talked about the different technology and techniques he uses, and about his own experience as a law enforcement officer.
The different kinds of technology used by police are among what I learned about on the ride along. Recording equipment is heavily used. Deputy Roy showed me a body microphone held in patrol vehicles. When he leaves the vehicle he clips it onto his uniform, and it provides an audio record such as for interactions with residents and suspects. Patrol vehicles have cameras in them. Footage gets downloaded wirelessly when a vehicle gets to the station, which for him is usually the Ypsilanti Township Civic Center on Huron River Drive.
The sheriff’s department also looked into portable video cameras for deputies to keep on themselves like the microphone. Deputy Roy said he tested a few of these cameras out over the summer, trying to find something that works out good. It needs to be easily portable, he said, because deputies carry plenty of equipment already.
From my own understanding, recording equipment is used both as a record of what happened if needed in court and as a means to protect officers from accusations.
I was also shown the computer deputies connect to their vehicles while on the road. They look like heavily armored laptops. There’s all kinds of features, such as a touch screen and easy to navigate screens that allow deputies to look up information even while on the move. Systems are in place capable of pulling up any driver’s license photographs and mug shots a person may have, allowing deputies to cross reference – useful for determining if somebody has a fake ID. Some of the computers even have a print reader, which is able to pull up this information with the imprint of a finger or thumb.
I also learned quite a bit about Deputy Roy during the ride along. I could tell he was passionate about being part of the sheriff’s department and working to make the community a better place.
“I could do this every day,” he said. “It’s what I always wanted to do.”
Three members of his family are also in law enforcement, two cousins and an uncle, so one explanation for his interest in law enforcement is that it’s simply in his bloodline.
Overall the ride along was a good experience. I’m glad I got to know Deputy Roy. He invited me to do another ride along pretty much whenever, but there were some suggestions like a midnight shift in July. I was told that’s one of the most active times in the year for law enforcement – mostly because people are themselves more active and get out more when its warmer, and this activity peaks in July.
Deputy Roy showed me around Ypsilanti Township and the different areas he regularly patrols, which include neighborhoods like West Willow, some apartment complexes like Village Grove Apartments, and trailer home parks. Part of the reason for the patrols is simply to have a visible police presence in the community. I’m still pretty new to the area so I was seeing quite a few things for the first time. He also talked about the different technology and techniques he uses, and about his own experience as a law enforcement officer.
The different kinds of technology used by police are among what I learned about on the ride along. Recording equipment is heavily used. Deputy Roy showed me a body microphone held in patrol vehicles. When he leaves the vehicle he clips it onto his uniform, and it provides an audio record such as for interactions with residents and suspects. Patrol vehicles have cameras in them. Footage gets downloaded wirelessly when a vehicle gets to the station, which for him is usually the Ypsilanti Township Civic Center on Huron River Drive.
The sheriff’s department also looked into portable video cameras for deputies to keep on themselves like the microphone. Deputy Roy said he tested a few of these cameras out over the summer, trying to find something that works out good. It needs to be easily portable, he said, because deputies carry plenty of equipment already.
From my own understanding, recording equipment is used both as a record of what happened if needed in court and as a means to protect officers from accusations.
I was also shown the computer deputies connect to their vehicles while on the road. They look like heavily armored laptops. There’s all kinds of features, such as a touch screen and easy to navigate screens that allow deputies to look up information even while on the move. Systems are in place capable of pulling up any driver’s license photographs and mug shots a person may have, allowing deputies to cross reference – useful for determining if somebody has a fake ID. Some of the computers even have a print reader, which is able to pull up this information with the imprint of a finger or thumb.
I also learned quite a bit about Deputy Roy during the ride along. I could tell he was passionate about being part of the sheriff’s department and working to make the community a better place.
“I could do this every day,” he said. “It’s what I always wanted to do.”
Three members of his family are also in law enforcement, two cousins and an uncle, so one explanation for his interest in law enforcement is that it’s simply in his bloodline.
Overall the ride along was a good experience. I’m glad I got to know Deputy Roy. He invited me to do another ride along pretty much whenever, but there were some suggestions like a midnight shift in July. I was told that’s one of the most active times in the year for law enforcement – mostly because people are themselves more active and get out more when its warmer, and this activity peaks in July.
It's time to get those potholes filled, Washtenaw County Road Commission
To contact us Click HERE
The most obvious sign of the warm weather we've had the last few weeks can be spotted on Austin Road, west of Saline in Saline Township. The potholes are some of the worst I've driven in quite some time.
They stretch from the west side of the City of Saline and then mostly through Saline Township. Once you get to Bridgewater, most of the nasty potholes stop.
The weather looks pretty nice out, perhaps the county could take their truck and fill some of them...?
It's paczki day: where did you get yours?
To contact us Click HERE
Tomorrow begins the season of Lent for Catholics and many Protestants, a season of fasting and penitence. Which means it's time for the metro Detroit favorite, the paczki.
A Polish favorite, the paczki has gained statewide popularity. I picked mine up at Benny's Bakery in downtown Saline this morning, and the line was the longest I've ever seen at the bakery.
Where did you pick yours up around Washtenaw County today? And who makes the best paczki?
|
| Breakfast of champions...? |
A Polish favorite, the paczki has gained statewide popularity. I picked mine up at Benny's Bakery in downtown Saline this morning, and the line was the longest I've ever seen at the bakery.
Where did you pick yours up around Washtenaw County today? And who makes the best paczki?
Interviewing legislators
To contact us Click HERE
I got a chance to interview the four people who will represent Washtenaw County in the Michigan House of Representatives Thursday at the Community Media Lab. The lab is a great place to show off and I thought it would be a great spot to showcase the Ann Arbor Spark building as well. So the four state reps, Jeff Irwin and Dave Rutledge, who will start their second terms next month and newly elected Gretchen Driskell and Adam Zemke and I chatted for nearly 90 minutes about various issues for the county, the recent election and what the future holds. The story will come out late next week after I go through my notes and edit some videos. I had a good time and I hope to use it as an interview spot again in the future. I would appreciate some more company. So in January, you can come down Thursday afternoons between 12:30 and 4 p.m. at 215 Michigan in Ypsilanti. I'd love to see you.
20 Aralık 2012 Perşembe
THE WASHINGTON COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE AND DOWNEAST COMMUNITY HOSPITAL ARE TAKING BACK UNWANTED PRESCRIPTION DRUGS APRIL 30 AT HANNAFORD SUPER MARKET
To contact us Click HERE
Machias Maine– On April 30 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. the Washington County Sheriff's along with DownEast Community Hospital ] and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) will give the public another opportunity to prevent pill abuse and theft by ridding their homes of potentially dangerous expired, unused, and unwanted prescription drugs. Bring your medications to Hannaford Super Market US Route one Machias, The service is free and anonymous, no questions asked.
Last September, Americans turned in 242,000 pounds—121 tons—of prescription drugs at nearly 4,100 sites operated by the DEA and more than 3,000 state and local law enforcement partners.
This initiative addresses a vital public safety and public health issue. Medicines that languish in home cabinets are highly susceptible to diversion, misuse, and abuse. Rates of prescription drug abuse in the U.S. are alarmingly high, as are the number of accidental poisonings and overdoses due to these drugs. Studies show that a majority of abused prescription drugs are obtained from family and friends, including from the home medicine cabinet. In addition, Americans are now advised that their usual methods for disposing of unused medicines—flushing them down the toilet or throwing them in the trash—both pose potential safety and health hazards.
Four days after last fall’s event, Congress passed the Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act of 2010, which amends the Controlled Substances Act to allow an “ultimate user” of controlled substance medications to dispose of them by delivering them to entities authorized by the Attorney General to accept them. The Act also allows the Attorney General to authorize long term care facilities to dispose of their residents’ controlled substances in certain instances. DEA has begun drafting regulations to implement the Act, a process that can take as long as 24 months. Until new regulations are in place, local law enforcement agencies like The Washington County Sheriff's Office and the DEA will continue to hold prescription drug take-back events every few months.
Sheriff Doniie Smith
Washington County Sheriff's Office
Last September, Americans turned in 242,000 pounds—121 tons—of prescription drugs at nearly 4,100 sites operated by the DEA and more than 3,000 state and local law enforcement partners.
This initiative addresses a vital public safety and public health issue. Medicines that languish in home cabinets are highly susceptible to diversion, misuse, and abuse. Rates of prescription drug abuse in the U.S. are alarmingly high, as are the number of accidental poisonings and overdoses due to these drugs. Studies show that a majority of abused prescription drugs are obtained from family and friends, including from the home medicine cabinet. In addition, Americans are now advised that their usual methods for disposing of unused medicines—flushing them down the toilet or throwing them in the trash—both pose potential safety and health hazards.
Four days after last fall’s event, Congress passed the Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act of 2010, which amends the Controlled Substances Act to allow an “ultimate user” of controlled substance medications to dispose of them by delivering them to entities authorized by the Attorney General to accept them. The Act also allows the Attorney General to authorize long term care facilities to dispose of their residents’ controlled substances in certain instances. DEA has begun drafting regulations to implement the Act, a process that can take as long as 24 months. Until new regulations are in place, local law enforcement agencies like The Washington County Sheriff's Office and the DEA will continue to hold prescription drug take-back events every few months.
Sheriff Doniie Smith
Washington County Sheriff's Office
Amnesty International's Support For War
To contact us Click HERE
Source: Veterans Today
Lies about war, in humanitarian disguise, were clearly evident in Chicago last March. Peace activist Ann Wright (a former Foreign Service State Department official and retired U.S. Army colonel); Ann Galloway, a member of Women Against Military Madness, and myself were among the thousands of antiwar activists who were in Chicago for the protest of NATO wars. There we noticed, in billboards and announcements, the new campaign of Amnesty International-USA: “Human Rights for Women and Girls in Afghanistan––NATO: Keep the Progress Going.”
Unwilling to let this go unchallenged, we packed into a taxi along with a few other antiwar activists, to head to the Chicago hotel where AI-USA’s “Shadow Summit” was being held—a conference billed as a feminist cause regarding the supposed improved status of women and children under US-NATO occupation. The summit featured former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and other US State Department officials and Council on Foreign Relations figures. We weren’t allowed to carry in our “NATO bombs are not humanitarian,” “NATO Kills Girls,” and anti-drone bombing posters that we had with us for the protest march later that day, but we did witness enough of the event to prompt Ann Wright and me to issue a warning about the exploitation of women’s rights as a cover for war: “Amnesty’s Shilling for US Wars.” 2
The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) later issued a Statement on NATO Claim of “Progress” for Women and Girls in Afghanistan,as well as aStatement Condemning Amnesty International USA’s Campaigns in Support of U.S./NATO Wars. UNAC condemned Amnesty’s pro-war stance and propaganda efforts supporting continued occupation in Afghanistan and intervention in Syria, and asked for Amnesty to reaffirm its commitment to human rights, not war, and remove those responsible for their current pro-war policies and campaigns.
Lies about war, in humanitarian disguise, were clearly evident in Chicago last March. Peace activist Ann Wright (a former Foreign Service State Department official and retired U.S. Army colonel); Ann Galloway, a member of Women Against Military Madness, and myself were among the thousands of antiwar activists who were in Chicago for the protest of NATO wars. There we noticed, in billboards and announcements, the new campaign of Amnesty International-USA: “Human Rights for Women and Girls in Afghanistan––NATO: Keep the Progress Going.”
Unwilling to let this go unchallenged, we packed into a taxi along with a few other antiwar activists, to head to the Chicago hotel where AI-USA’s “Shadow Summit” was being held—a conference billed as a feminist cause regarding the supposed improved status of women and children under US-NATO occupation. The summit featured former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and other US State Department officials and Council on Foreign Relations figures. We weren’t allowed to carry in our “NATO bombs are not humanitarian,” “NATO Kills Girls,” and anti-drone bombing posters that we had with us for the protest march later that day, but we did witness enough of the event to prompt Ann Wright and me to issue a warning about the exploitation of women’s rights as a cover for war: “Amnesty’s Shilling for US Wars.” 2
The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) later issued a Statement on NATO Claim of “Progress” for Women and Girls in Afghanistan,as well as aStatement Condemning Amnesty International USA’s Campaigns in Support of U.S./NATO Wars. UNAC condemned Amnesty’s pro-war stance and propaganda efforts supporting continued occupation in Afghanistan and intervention in Syria, and asked for Amnesty to reaffirm its commitment to human rights, not war, and remove those responsible for their current pro-war policies and campaigns.
National Institute For Science, Law and Public Policy Says Smart Meters Aren't Smart
To contact us Click HERE
The Smart Meter issue is a mess.
Here's the report by the National Institute For Science, Law and Public Policy-- at GettingSmarterAboutTheSmartGrid.org.
Look what Pacific Grinch & Electric gave several customers for Christmas last year when they tried to exchange their "smart" meters for analog meters.(click link)
Over three billion U.S. taxpayer dollars kept factories humming while the meters were being manufactured. Problem is, those factories weren't necessarily in the United States, according to a recent report linked at the bottom of this page. "Stimulus"---uh, OK.
I've written elsewhere on this blog about the warnings from health experts about these meters. What's really astounding is the coercion of customers by utilities to accept this health hazard in their homes. Not the least astounding is the assertion that I see over and over again: "The power company owns the meters and you need to do what they say." Really? Even if it's making me ill?
As "StopSmartMeters.org" said:
How can utilities claim that ‘smart’ meter health impacts are “psychosomatic” when many of the people who report such symptoms never knew that ‘smart’ meters pose a health risk, or even that they had one on the side of their home?
However, there are people out there with good ideas, like the following.
I found the following wisdom through a random comment.
Source: Squareandc.net
My design principles:
1. Human’s are endo-skeletal creatures. Our world (products) are increasingly exo- skeletal. Thus, we cannot interface smoothly with out own designs.
2. All good design is functionally and schematically fractal.
3. We persist in designing for first order effects (slap-ouch) whileeithergnoring or damping higher order causes and effects.
4. Two of the greatest technical minds of the last 2-3 centuries, Nikolai Tesla and Viktor Schauberger worked in the space of harmonies and resonance. Tesla had intuitively mastered electromagnetic resonance and Schauberger had done likewise for bio-mechanical resonance. Buckminster Fuller was the one who brought the subtle idea of a mechanical matrix into the picture. He coined tensegrity as the balance of opposing tensions. When evolved into tension which I believe visible (measurable tension is always a subset of, you get torsional integrity. These are the three cornerstones of my design philosophy:
• Design for the endo-skeletal creature
• Harness harmonics
• Torsional Integrity
• The visible universe, fractally speaking is mechanically centripetal forgrowth and centrifugal for dissolution. Our designed world is entirelycentrifugal for deceptive growth (deceptive because the entire lifecycle is never taken into account) and only occasionally positively centripetal.
• All designs should embody relaxed tension.
• We are lopsided in our expenditure and focus if we study the current technology adoption curve. Far too many technologies get buried in the dusty, un-evolved, while we raise to spend money on user interface design. The missed point is that the root is weakly developed, you will never get a big tree.
• The exact same argument as above, when it comes to product life-cycle spending far too little in code development and far too much on market development. It looks like as a technological people, our Souk mentality has reached critical mass.
• We have to contort to our designs, whereas, our designs should mould to us.
• The magic is in designing for second and higher order effects of two dis-similar planes / waves meeting. Call it, ripple effect design.
The comment came from this post on Zerohedge.com: US Power Grid Vulnerable To Just About Everything
One key problem is theoretically a simple one to resolve: a lack of spare parts. According to the National Academy of Sciences, the grid is particularly vulnerable because it is spread out across hundreds of miles with key equipment not sufficiently guarded or antiquated and unable to prevent outages from cascading.
We are talking about some 170,000 miles of voltage transmission line miles fed by 2,100 high-voltage transformers delivering power to 125 million households.
"We could easily be without power across a multistate region for many weeks or months, because we don't have many spare transformers,” according to the Academy.
High-voltage transformers are vulnerable both from within and from outside the substations in which they are housed. Complicating matters, these transformers are huge and difficult to remove. They are also difficult to replace, as they are custom built primarily outside the US. So what is the solution? Perhaps, says the Academy, to design smaller portable transformers that could be used temporarily in an emergency situation.
Why was the Academy’s 2007 report only just declassified? Well, its authors were worried that it would be tantamount to providing terrorists with a detailed recipe for attacking and destabilizing America, or perhaps for starting a revolution.
I found the Zerohedge piece by way of this Greentechmedia.com piece: Was Smart Grid Funding Mis-Spent?
A recent report from the National Institute for Science, Law & Public Policy came with a provocative press release title: “Smart Grid Funding Misspent on Obsolete Technologies.”
The press release got plenty of attention from the utility and smart grid news circles, but it’s tough to tell if any of those actually read the report, “Getting Smarter About the Smart Grid,” written by Timothy Schoechle, a consultant in computer engineering and standardization and former faculty member of the University of Colorado's College of Engineering and Applied Science.
The report primarily takes aim at smart meters, which got the lion share of stimulus funding. Schoechle raises many questions and concerns that many others in the industry have identified, including the value of smart meters (although he also does not acknowledge their value when connected to more end-to-end smart grid projects, as many others do); the question of data privacy; and the issue of whether the meters, in and of themselves, will save consumers money.
Here's the report at GettingSmarterAboutTheSmartGrid.org.
Here's the report by the National Institute For Science, Law and Public Policy-- at GettingSmarterAboutTheSmartGrid.org.
Look what Pacific Grinch & Electric gave several customers for Christmas last year when they tried to exchange their "smart" meters for analog meters.(click link)
Over three billion U.S. taxpayer dollars kept factories humming while the meters were being manufactured. Problem is, those factories weren't necessarily in the United States, according to a recent report linked at the bottom of this page. "Stimulus"---uh, OK.
I've written elsewhere on this blog about the warnings from health experts about these meters. What's really astounding is the coercion of customers by utilities to accept this health hazard in their homes. Not the least astounding is the assertion that I see over and over again: "The power company owns the meters and you need to do what they say." Really? Even if it's making me ill?
As "StopSmartMeters.org" said:
How can utilities claim that ‘smart’ meter health impacts are “psychosomatic” when many of the people who report such symptoms never knew that ‘smart’ meters pose a health risk, or even that they had one on the side of their home?
However, there are people out there with good ideas, like the following.
I found the following wisdom through a random comment.
Source: Squareandc.net
My design principles:
1. Human’s are endo-skeletal creatures. Our world (products) are increasingly exo- skeletal. Thus, we cannot interface smoothly with out own designs.
2. All good design is functionally and schematically fractal.
3. We persist in designing for first order effects (slap-ouch) whileeithergnoring or damping higher order causes and effects.
4. Two of the greatest technical minds of the last 2-3 centuries, Nikolai Tesla and Viktor Schauberger worked in the space of harmonies and resonance. Tesla had intuitively mastered electromagnetic resonance and Schauberger had done likewise for bio-mechanical resonance. Buckminster Fuller was the one who brought the subtle idea of a mechanical matrix into the picture. He coined tensegrity as the balance of opposing tensions. When evolved into tension which I believe visible (measurable tension is always a subset of, you get torsional integrity. These are the three cornerstones of my design philosophy:
• Design for the endo-skeletal creature
• Harness harmonics
• Torsional Integrity
• The visible universe, fractally speaking is mechanically centripetal forgrowth and centrifugal for dissolution. Our designed world is entirelycentrifugal for deceptive growth (deceptive because the entire lifecycle is never taken into account) and only occasionally positively centripetal.
• All designs should embody relaxed tension.
• We are lopsided in our expenditure and focus if we study the current technology adoption curve. Far too many technologies get buried in the dusty, un-evolved, while we raise to spend money on user interface design. The missed point is that the root is weakly developed, you will never get a big tree.
• The exact same argument as above, when it comes to product life-cycle spending far too little in code development and far too much on market development. It looks like as a technological people, our Souk mentality has reached critical mass.
• We have to contort to our designs, whereas, our designs should mould to us.
• The magic is in designing for second and higher order effects of two dis-similar planes / waves meeting. Call it, ripple effect design.
The comment came from this post on Zerohedge.com: US Power Grid Vulnerable To Just About Everything
One key problem is theoretically a simple one to resolve: a lack of spare parts. According to the National Academy of Sciences, the grid is particularly vulnerable because it is spread out across hundreds of miles with key equipment not sufficiently guarded or antiquated and unable to prevent outages from cascading.
We are talking about some 170,000 miles of voltage transmission line miles fed by 2,100 high-voltage transformers delivering power to 125 million households.
"We could easily be without power across a multistate region for many weeks or months, because we don't have many spare transformers,” according to the Academy.
High-voltage transformers are vulnerable both from within and from outside the substations in which they are housed. Complicating matters, these transformers are huge and difficult to remove. They are also difficult to replace, as they are custom built primarily outside the US. So what is the solution? Perhaps, says the Academy, to design smaller portable transformers that could be used temporarily in an emergency situation.
Why was the Academy’s 2007 report only just declassified? Well, its authors were worried that it would be tantamount to providing terrorists with a detailed recipe for attacking and destabilizing America, or perhaps for starting a revolution.
I found the Zerohedge piece by way of this Greentechmedia.com piece: Was Smart Grid Funding Mis-Spent?
A recent report from the National Institute for Science, Law & Public Policy came with a provocative press release title: “Smart Grid Funding Misspent on Obsolete Technologies.”
The press release got plenty of attention from the utility and smart grid news circles, but it’s tough to tell if any of those actually read the report, “Getting Smarter About the Smart Grid,” written by Timothy Schoechle, a consultant in computer engineering and standardization and former faculty member of the University of Colorado's College of Engineering and Applied Science.
The report primarily takes aim at smart meters, which got the lion share of stimulus funding. Schoechle raises many questions and concerns that many others in the industry have identified, including the value of smart meters (although he also does not acknowledge their value when connected to more end-to-end smart grid projects, as many others do); the question of data privacy; and the issue of whether the meters, in and of themselves, will save consumers money.
Here's the report at GettingSmarterAboutTheSmartGrid.org.
Can't Add LinkedIn Recommendations
To contact us Click HERE
This apparently isn't a new problem.
How long does it take to fix this "bug"?
This isn't complicated software and it doesn't happen elsewhere.
Is it "incompetence"? As a friend just suggested?
Or are certain people who write and say controversial things targeted and hacked?
In this day and age of high-tech spying, cameras on the ceiling and in public, fusion centers and surveillance of communications----is it unreasonable or paranoid to feel like maybe there's a design, and it's not incompetent?
Because to not consider that, seems ......well, fuck, I don't know.
There's a really nice recommendation by a Baylor compadre, who said such lovely things that I wish his endorsement would show up on my profile. But it doesn't. It does show up in my list of recommendations, unlike the other rec's I've gotten notice on lately. It tells me to click a link to un-hide it. I do this, and it does ..nothing. Again and again. I cannot unhide this rec.
How long does it take to fix this "bug"?
This isn't complicated software and it doesn't happen elsewhere.
Is it "incompetence"? As a friend just suggested?
Or are certain people who write and say controversial things targeted and hacked?
In this day and age of high-tech spying, cameras on the ceiling and in public, fusion centers and surveillance of communications----is it unreasonable or paranoid to feel like maybe there's a design, and it's not incompetent?
Because to not consider that, seems ......well, fuck, I don't know.
There's a really nice recommendation by a Baylor compadre, who said such lovely things that I wish his endorsement would show up on my profile. But it doesn't. It does show up in my list of recommendations, unlike the other rec's I've gotten notice on lately. It tells me to click a link to un-hide it. I do this, and it does ..nothing. Again and again. I cannot unhide this rec.
Top 12 Tech Scams of Christmas
To contact us Click HERE
It's hard to believe that not everyone is in the holiday spirit, but indeed there are Scrooges and Grinches among us. Online shopping, mobile apps and social media have given cybercriminals even more ways to steal. This blog post from McAfee outlines the Top 12 Scams of Christmas to Watch Out For. While most of us don't think we could be victimized, it happens every day, so heed the warnings and share this important information with friends and family to ensure a safe and financially secure holiday season!
16 Aralık 2012 Pazar
Thoughts About Cesium-137 And The Human Heart On A Rainy Day
To contact us Click HERE
If you're wondering about radiation, people across the country with geiger counters are discussing their findings here.
I was thinking about radiation because it's been raining. This is day two of rain.
A dear colleague passed away today, suddenly, after a routine angioplasty.
I thought about the West Coast dose from Fukushima and about this article on how cardiac deaths in Fukushima doubled after 311. And wondered.
"What the American Medical Association hopes you never learn about its true history"is the name of an article I came across recently that gave me serious pause. We hope to stay well.
Reactor Four over at Dai-Ichi is looking different. There's a hole in the fourth level that wasn't there in July '12 photos.
I can add Fukushima Diary to the list of sites I am not allowed to comment on.
*Update; by inserting a different email address into the "email" field I was able to get the comment to go through. Maybe I'll try that with these other sites which I've had trouble posting at...
Stopsmartmeters.org
Enviroreporter.com
Hatrickpenry.wordpress.com
An American Fukushima Possible source: OpEd News
Fukushima: A Crisis In Waiting Source: Aesop Institute
I was thinking about radiation because it's been raining. This is day two of rain.
A dear colleague passed away today, suddenly, after a routine angioplasty.
I thought about the West Coast dose from Fukushima and about this article on how cardiac deaths in Fukushima doubled after 311. And wondered.
"What the American Medical Association hopes you never learn about its true history"is the name of an article I came across recently that gave me serious pause. We hope to stay well.
Reactor Four over at Dai-Ichi is looking different. There's a hole in the fourth level that wasn't there in July '12 photos.
I can add Fukushima Diary to the list of sites I am not allowed to comment on.
*Update; by inserting a different email address into the "email" field I was able to get the comment to go through. Maybe I'll try that with these other sites which I've had trouble posting at...
Stopsmartmeters.org
Enviroreporter.com
Hatrickpenry.wordpress.com
An American Fukushima Possible source: OpEd News
Fukushima: A Crisis In Waiting Source: Aesop Institute
Prop 37 Vote Count
To contact us Click HERE
You can't sign the Moveon.org petition about counting votes for Prop 37, the GMO labeling initiative. The petition's been taken down.
An Moveon.org email received by a blogger named Jilian said:
“According to investigative journalist Jon Rappoport, more than one million votes on Prop 37 (the GMO labeling initiative) in California have gone uncounted to date. Since the margin of “victory” is about 600,000 votes, this means Prop 37 may conceivably have passed.
Rappoport called the voter registrar offices in the largest California counties and nearly 1.7 million votes remain uncounted in Santa Clara, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Orange Counties alone. It is still unknown how many votes are uncounted in other California counties.”
Source: Examiner.com
"It was announced prematurely and very quietly, in keeping with the wishes of pro GMO companies like Campbell's, Kraft and Monsanto. Within a mere two hours after the polls closed, the corporate media was announcing the defeat of proposition 37. This was despite the fact that over 3 million votes remained uncounted, and the reported margin of defeat for prop 37 was only about half a million.
One needn't have much experience with statistical mathematics to suspect that this vote was decided by corporate media, long before any accurate polling results could have been obtained."
November 7, 2012 (day after election) here's the count on Prop 37:
Yes (support GMO labeling) – 4,194793 (47%)
No (oppose GMO labeling) – 4,723,681 (53%)
WHY THE PROP 37 VOTE-COUNT IS TOO PERFECT
by Jon Rappoport
November 17, 2012
www.nomorefakenews.com
Late yesterday afternoon, I consulted a map of California counties on the secretary of state’s website. You can see it here:
http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/maps/ballot-measures/prop/37/
This page has a summary of the Prop 37 vote-count so far.
This is an ongoing figure, because the state of California is still counting votes.
In the box, you’ll see YES on 37 has 5,329,994 votes. NO on 37 has 5,869,382 votes.
YES on 37 has 47.6% of the vote, while NO has 52.4%.
This is vitally important. Why? Because when the networks called the election early, on election night, a couple of hours after the polls closed, this was almost exactly the percentage breakdown they claimed existed then.
It’s no different from the vote percentages now: less than one percentage point.
Eleven days later, as millions more votes have been counted, and are being counted, these election-night percentages are still holding firm.
What are the odds of that happening?
read more here.
As of today, November 29th, checking the Secretary of State's count as linked above, the numbers are thus:
No on 37 has 51.7 percent of the vote, with 6,277,152 votes.
Yes on 37 has 48.3 percent of the vote with 5,857,928 votes.
So, check it out. Weeks after the original vote, the percentages are still similar..but the Yes votes are increasing and the No votes are decreasing.
Rappoport also wonders whether the Yes on 37 Campaign might have been undermined by allies like Whole Foods, which have competing interests.
As of today, 670,245 ballots remain to be counted.
An Moveon.org email received by a blogger named Jilian said:
“According to investigative journalist Jon Rappoport, more than one million votes on Prop 37 (the GMO labeling initiative) in California have gone uncounted to date. Since the margin of “victory” is about 600,000 votes, this means Prop 37 may conceivably have passed.
Rappoport called the voter registrar offices in the largest California counties and nearly 1.7 million votes remain uncounted in Santa Clara, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Orange Counties alone. It is still unknown how many votes are uncounted in other California counties.”
Source: Examiner.com
"It was announced prematurely and very quietly, in keeping with the wishes of pro GMO companies like Campbell's, Kraft and Monsanto. Within a mere two hours after the polls closed, the corporate media was announcing the defeat of proposition 37. This was despite the fact that over 3 million votes remained uncounted, and the reported margin of defeat for prop 37 was only about half a million.
One needn't have much experience with statistical mathematics to suspect that this vote was decided by corporate media, long before any accurate polling results could have been obtained."
November 7, 2012 (day after election) here's the count on Prop 37:
Yes (support GMO labeling) – 4,194793 (47%)
No (oppose GMO labeling) – 4,723,681 (53%)
WHY THE PROP 37 VOTE-COUNT IS TOO PERFECT
by Jon Rappoport
November 17, 2012
www.nomorefakenews.com
Late yesterday afternoon, I consulted a map of California counties on the secretary of state’s website. You can see it here:
http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/maps/ballot-measures/prop/37/
This page has a summary of the Prop 37 vote-count so far.
This is an ongoing figure, because the state of California is still counting votes.
In the box, you’ll see YES on 37 has 5,329,994 votes. NO on 37 has 5,869,382 votes.
YES on 37 has 47.6% of the vote, while NO has 52.4%.
This is vitally important. Why? Because when the networks called the election early, on election night, a couple of hours after the polls closed, this was almost exactly the percentage breakdown they claimed existed then.
It’s no different from the vote percentages now: less than one percentage point.
Eleven days later, as millions more votes have been counted, and are being counted, these election-night percentages are still holding firm.
What are the odds of that happening?
read more here.
As of today, November 29th, checking the Secretary of State's count as linked above, the numbers are thus:
No on 37 has 51.7 percent of the vote, with 6,277,152 votes.
Yes on 37 has 48.3 percent of the vote with 5,857,928 votes.
So, check it out. Weeks after the original vote, the percentages are still similar..but the Yes votes are increasing and the No votes are decreasing.
Rappoport also wonders whether the Yes on 37 Campaign might have been undermined by allies like Whole Foods, which have competing interests.
As of today, 670,245 ballots remain to be counted.
National Institute For Science, Law and Public Policy Says Smart Meters Aren't Smart
To contact us Click HERE
The Smart Meter issue is a mess.
Here's the report by the National Institute For Science, Law and Public Policy-- at GettingSmarterAboutTheSmartGrid.org.
Look what Pacific Grinch & Electric gave several customers for Christmas last year when they tried to exchange their "smart" meters for analog meters.(click link)
Over three billion U.S. taxpayer dollars kept factories humming while the meters were being manufactured. Problem is, those factories weren't necessarily in the United States, according to a recent report linked at the bottom of this page. "Stimulus"---uh, OK.
I've written elsewhere on this blog about the warnings from health experts about these meters. What's really astounding is the coercion of customers by utilities to accept this health hazard in their homes. Not the least astounding is the assertion that I see over and over again: "The power company owns the meters and you need to do what they say." Really? Even if it's making me ill?
As "StopSmartMeters.org" said:
How can utilities claim that ‘smart’ meter health impacts are “psychosomatic” when many of the people who report such symptoms never knew that ‘smart’ meters pose a health risk, or even that they had one on the side of their home?
However, there are people out there with good ideas, like the following.
I found the following wisdom through a random comment.
Source: Squareandc.net
My design principles:
1. Human’s are endo-skeletal creatures. Our world (products) are increasingly exo- skeletal. Thus, we cannot interface smoothly with out own designs.
2. All good design is functionally and schematically fractal.
3. We persist in designing for first order effects (slap-ouch) whileeithergnoring or damping higher order causes and effects.
4. Two of the greatest technical minds of the last 2-3 centuries, Nikolai Tesla and Viktor Schauberger worked in the space of harmonies and resonance. Tesla had intuitively mastered electromagnetic resonance and Schauberger had done likewise for bio-mechanical resonance. Buckminster Fuller was the one who brought the subtle idea of a mechanical matrix into the picture. He coined tensegrity as the balance of opposing tensions. When evolved into tension which I believe visible (measurable tension is always a subset of, you get torsional integrity. These are the three cornerstones of my design philosophy:
• Design for the endo-skeletal creature
• Harness harmonics
• Torsional Integrity
• The visible universe, fractally speaking is mechanically centripetal forgrowth and centrifugal for dissolution. Our designed world is entirelycentrifugal for deceptive growth (deceptive because the entire lifecycle is never taken into account) and only occasionally positively centripetal.
• All designs should embody relaxed tension.
• We are lopsided in our expenditure and focus if we study the current technology adoption curve. Far too many technologies get buried in the dusty, un-evolved, while we raise to spend money on user interface design. The missed point is that the root is weakly developed, you will never get a big tree.
• The exact same argument as above, when it comes to product life-cycle spending far too little in code development and far too much on market development. It looks like as a technological people, our Souk mentality has reached critical mass.
• We have to contort to our designs, whereas, our designs should mould to us.
• The magic is in designing for second and higher order effects of two dis-similar planes / waves meeting. Call it, ripple effect design.
The comment came from this post on Zerohedge.com: US Power Grid Vulnerable To Just About Everything
One key problem is theoretically a simple one to resolve: a lack of spare parts. According to the National Academy of Sciences, the grid is particularly vulnerable because it is spread out across hundreds of miles with key equipment not sufficiently guarded or antiquated and unable to prevent outages from cascading.
We are talking about some 170,000 miles of voltage transmission line miles fed by 2,100 high-voltage transformers delivering power to 125 million households.
"We could easily be without power across a multistate region for many weeks or months, because we don't have many spare transformers,” according to the Academy.
High-voltage transformers are vulnerable both from within and from outside the substations in which they are housed. Complicating matters, these transformers are huge and difficult to remove. They are also difficult to replace, as they are custom built primarily outside the US. So what is the solution? Perhaps, says the Academy, to design smaller portable transformers that could be used temporarily in an emergency situation.
Why was the Academy’s 2007 report only just declassified? Well, its authors were worried that it would be tantamount to providing terrorists with a detailed recipe for attacking and destabilizing America, or perhaps for starting a revolution.
I found the Zerohedge piece by way of this Greentechmedia.com piece: Was Smart Grid Funding Mis-Spent?
A recent report from the National Institute for Science, Law & Public Policy came with a provocative press release title: “Smart Grid Funding Misspent on Obsolete Technologies.”
The press release got plenty of attention from the utility and smart grid news circles, but it’s tough to tell if any of those actually read the report, “Getting Smarter About the Smart Grid,” written by Timothy Schoechle, a consultant in computer engineering and standardization and former faculty member of the University of Colorado's College of Engineering and Applied Science.
The report primarily takes aim at smart meters, which got the lion share of stimulus funding. Schoechle raises many questions and concerns that many others in the industry have identified, including the value of smart meters (although he also does not acknowledge their value when connected to more end-to-end smart grid projects, as many others do); the question of data privacy; and the issue of whether the meters, in and of themselves, will save consumers money.
Here's the report at GettingSmarterAboutTheSmartGrid.org.
Here's the report by the National Institute For Science, Law and Public Policy-- at GettingSmarterAboutTheSmartGrid.org.
Look what Pacific Grinch & Electric gave several customers for Christmas last year when they tried to exchange their "smart" meters for analog meters.(click link)
Over three billion U.S. taxpayer dollars kept factories humming while the meters were being manufactured. Problem is, those factories weren't necessarily in the United States, according to a recent report linked at the bottom of this page. "Stimulus"---uh, OK.
I've written elsewhere on this blog about the warnings from health experts about these meters. What's really astounding is the coercion of customers by utilities to accept this health hazard in their homes. Not the least astounding is the assertion that I see over and over again: "The power company owns the meters and you need to do what they say." Really? Even if it's making me ill?
As "StopSmartMeters.org" said:
How can utilities claim that ‘smart’ meter health impacts are “psychosomatic” when many of the people who report such symptoms never knew that ‘smart’ meters pose a health risk, or even that they had one on the side of their home?
However, there are people out there with good ideas, like the following.
I found the following wisdom through a random comment.
Source: Squareandc.net
My design principles:
1. Human’s are endo-skeletal creatures. Our world (products) are increasingly exo- skeletal. Thus, we cannot interface smoothly with out own designs.
2. All good design is functionally and schematically fractal.
3. We persist in designing for first order effects (slap-ouch) whileeithergnoring or damping higher order causes and effects.
4. Two of the greatest technical minds of the last 2-3 centuries, Nikolai Tesla and Viktor Schauberger worked in the space of harmonies and resonance. Tesla had intuitively mastered electromagnetic resonance and Schauberger had done likewise for bio-mechanical resonance. Buckminster Fuller was the one who brought the subtle idea of a mechanical matrix into the picture. He coined tensegrity as the balance of opposing tensions. When evolved into tension which I believe visible (measurable tension is always a subset of, you get torsional integrity. These are the three cornerstones of my design philosophy:
• Design for the endo-skeletal creature
• Harness harmonics
• Torsional Integrity
• The visible universe, fractally speaking is mechanically centripetal forgrowth and centrifugal for dissolution. Our designed world is entirelycentrifugal for deceptive growth (deceptive because the entire lifecycle is never taken into account) and only occasionally positively centripetal.
• All designs should embody relaxed tension.
• We are lopsided in our expenditure and focus if we study the current technology adoption curve. Far too many technologies get buried in the dusty, un-evolved, while we raise to spend money on user interface design. The missed point is that the root is weakly developed, you will never get a big tree.
• The exact same argument as above, when it comes to product life-cycle spending far too little in code development and far too much on market development. It looks like as a technological people, our Souk mentality has reached critical mass.
• We have to contort to our designs, whereas, our designs should mould to us.
• The magic is in designing for second and higher order effects of two dis-similar planes / waves meeting. Call it, ripple effect design.
The comment came from this post on Zerohedge.com: US Power Grid Vulnerable To Just About Everything
One key problem is theoretically a simple one to resolve: a lack of spare parts. According to the National Academy of Sciences, the grid is particularly vulnerable because it is spread out across hundreds of miles with key equipment not sufficiently guarded or antiquated and unable to prevent outages from cascading.
We are talking about some 170,000 miles of voltage transmission line miles fed by 2,100 high-voltage transformers delivering power to 125 million households.
"We could easily be without power across a multistate region for many weeks or months, because we don't have many spare transformers,” according to the Academy.
High-voltage transformers are vulnerable both from within and from outside the substations in which they are housed. Complicating matters, these transformers are huge and difficult to remove. They are also difficult to replace, as they are custom built primarily outside the US. So what is the solution? Perhaps, says the Academy, to design smaller portable transformers that could be used temporarily in an emergency situation.
Why was the Academy’s 2007 report only just declassified? Well, its authors were worried that it would be tantamount to providing terrorists with a detailed recipe for attacking and destabilizing America, or perhaps for starting a revolution.
I found the Zerohedge piece by way of this Greentechmedia.com piece: Was Smart Grid Funding Mis-Spent?
A recent report from the National Institute for Science, Law & Public Policy came with a provocative press release title: “Smart Grid Funding Misspent on Obsolete Technologies.”
The press release got plenty of attention from the utility and smart grid news circles, but it’s tough to tell if any of those actually read the report, “Getting Smarter About the Smart Grid,” written by Timothy Schoechle, a consultant in computer engineering and standardization and former faculty member of the University of Colorado's College of Engineering and Applied Science.
The report primarily takes aim at smart meters, which got the lion share of stimulus funding. Schoechle raises many questions and concerns that many others in the industry have identified, including the value of smart meters (although he also does not acknowledge their value when connected to more end-to-end smart grid projects, as many others do); the question of data privacy; and the issue of whether the meters, in and of themselves, will save consumers money.
Here's the report at GettingSmarterAboutTheSmartGrid.org.
Is Your Cell Phone Making You A Jerk? --TIME
To contact us Click HERE
TIME magazine arrived regularly in my mailbox for years. I had to stop getting it.
The tipping point was the images on the covers. They were images one should not see without some kind of preparation. For example, I'm sure that young Afghani woman was relieved to have a new nose, after she was shown on TIME's cover without one...but the context in which that image appeared (supporting the Afghan war) made me unspeakably sad, and hit me like a ton of bricks.
But there are often excellent pieces in TIME that you don't find elsewhere and here is one.
Is Your Cell Phone Making You A Jerk?
Cell phones keep us socially connected, but new research suggests they actually reduce users’ social consciousness. In fact, the study showed that cell phone use was linked to more selfish behavior.
Researchers from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business found that after a short period of cell phone use, people were less likely to partake in “prosocial” behavior — actions that are intended to help another person or society — compared with a control group. For example, after using a cell phone, study participants were more likely to turn down volunteer opportunities and were less persistent in completing word problems, even though they knew their answers would provide money for charity.
Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2012/02/20/is-your-cell-phone-making-you-a-jerk/#ixzz2DlbztbrF
I liked this comment from the San Francisco Chronicle reader responding to their coverage of the study:
Personally, I pay for my cell phone and I will answer or not answer calls and texts as it suits me. I will not be a slave to the phone and I definitely will not pay for the privilege of being a slave to a device. I have told people, including family members, if you want to be sure I always pick up when you call, you'll have to pay my phone bill. I have told friends they can come over to visit or they can call/text others - what they can't do is come to visit me and then spend all their time on the phone to others.
Don't waste my time! I freely acknowledge the selfishness of my position and don't give a damn!
Amy Graff wrote for the Chronicle:
This is a small study that hasn’t even been peer-reviewed but I think it begins to get at a major problem with cell phones: People become self-absorbed when they use them. I’d love to see a study looking at how people act selfishly while on their phones—stealing parking spaces, cutting in line at Starbucks, running other drivers out of their lanes—in everyday life. I’ve too often seen people fail to pick up their dogs’ droppings and parents neglect their kids because they’re gabbing on their phones. (I know that I’ve been guilty of it with my own children.) Cell phones are addictive and when you hear the bell call, it’s hard to ignore—even if you’re at the park playing with your kids.
The other weekend my husband and I found ourselves in an unusual situation without the kids for a couple hours. We both needed to work but squeezed in a walk to spend some quality alone time together.
About five minutes into our stroll, his iPhone beeped. He pulled out his phone and responded to the text…and then he sent another text and another and another. Fifteen minutes later he was still fully absorbed in his phone—and acting as if I didn’t even exist.
I was annoyed and told him. He made me feel like a nag for complaining. The texts were related to work, he told me.
“Can’t you give me 30 minutes of your time on a Saturday afternoon?” I said.
And then his phone beeped again…
The above might be the reason I've become even more reclusive than I ever used to be. I can't stand my time being wasted by people who are right there in my space who can't be in the present. Going out to dinner and having to compete with a device for attention is not my idea of a fun time, and, so, I go out to dinner less and less these days with friends. I just thank heaven my baby isn't addicted to his phone.
Oh yeah, they put tumors in your head, too.
Another person's comment was music to my Luddite ears:
Society was better when everything was human and manual: no software, no electronics, no electrical motor, no gasoline motor, no steam engine. Wind mills probably okay. Everything that needed to be done was done by a human.
Also, no guns and ammunition: if you wanted to fight and kill (in war or crime), you must be close enough to be personal.
There are so many other comments that say what I've been thinking for years and I can't help reprinting them here.
They are comforting to read because as I look around every day, I get to feeling really lonely and uncertain about the future. IE: If these next generations are supposedly going to run things one day, what kind of decisions will they make?
Cell phones and especially "smart phones" do whatever the opposite is to meditating and living in the moment, they subtract you from your surroundings isolate you from yourself, the world and the others. To he'll with apps and games and fb, use it when really needed only.
REPLY (13) (1) POPULARITY: 12 | | [Report Abuse]
1 reply
furtherstill 7:38 PM on February 19, 2012
As someone who used to meditate on koans while waiting for public transit, I must say, indeed. When cellphones started to massively proliferate 15 or so years ago, I realized that introspection was dying amongst its last unwilling holdouts. It's now dead and buried for those that most needed it.
Now I find myself living in a world populated by witless adherents to a combination of both the Orwellian and Huxleyian nightmares.
~~~~~
Continuously amused by "studies" that imply that one technology or another breeds a certain, usually antisocial, behavior. Video games do not cause violence, pornography does not cause sexual deviancy and cell phones do not cause people to be selfish. What these technologies MAY do is bring to the surface preexisting behavior, but that concept doesn't sell many papers...
My response to that: No, that concept might not sell papers, but ad revenue from cell phone companies keeps papers in business, so said papers are continuously full of endorsements for cell phones.
Continuous yakking and gibbering of the braying donkey is at an all time high. Having a life, social interaction and common sense is...uncommon.
I use my phone least as it is best. It is for outgoing calls and I seldom answer incoming calls. It runs me about $20 monthly and that folks IS priceless.
~~~
"Self Phones"
~~~~
Thanks for mentioning parents on cell phones ignoring their children. I have seen mothers in grocery stores so often, on the phone, while their children trail vacant-eyed behind them. I just hope we aren't raising a generation of emotionally damaged, or even psychopathic, children (I keep thinking of that experiment with the wire, and the towel-and-wire, ersatz monkey mothers...)
~~~~
This reminds me of the wireless ad with the kinda weird-looking young woman with the bangs that is on her phone every minutes of the day, while walking the dog, ordering food, riding the bus, ...
Get off the phone, idiot. It is not normal to be staring at an electronic device all day, ESPECIALLY when there are other human beings present.
~~~~
Turn off your cell phone, get off facebook, and live damn it!
~~~~
The government wants a nation of cell phone zombies. If it threatened to remove their teleco crack pushers, the vast majority of the braindead would agree to do anything to resume their addiction.
~~~~
I am afraid the consensus is in, Homeland Insecurity will have roaming officers to SMASH peoples cell phones at random who are crossing the street yakking on it. We all wish it hadn't come to this, but it has. Let's call this Operation: Scared Straight. Yes, I like that. Now Officers, get-a-smashing. ((Yes, same old same old: I am liberal and a strong civil libertarian.))
~~~~
Hold on just a sec, I gotta take this call and then I'll write my comments.......
~~~~~
You really need a study to show this?
~~~~
I suspect smartphone-addicted people are less selfish, and instead just suffering from severe attention deficit disorder, which comes off as self-obsession in the company of others. It's what happens when one is glued to the Facebook app. I rarely give these folks the time of day, because it's way way more difficult to engage them. Sorry smartphone geeks.
~~~~
How would you feel if asked to turn your device off (or leave it in a basket at the front door) when visiting a friend or family member? Would that offend you? Make you feel "disconnected" or "cut off"? What is the purpose of immediate "connectivity" if you can't connect with those immediately in your presence?
~~~~
It is not ok and is rude to answer a phone while someone is having a conversation with you. How would you feel if someone opened a newspaper and started to read it while he/she was talking with you. If it's an emergency situation, run out the door and answer the phone, but if not; leaving a friend to wait for you to end your "more important" conversation is not right. When ever that happens to me, I walk away from the person. Sometimes they get angry, but that is THEIR problem. They caused it.
~~~~
People on cell phones in public are neither here nor there.
~~~~
They're self obsessed with some other self-obsessed person on the other end...they can have each other. The older you get the more you appreciate solitude, autonomy and not being bothered every five minutes. First thing I did when I got my cell phone was disconnect texting. You want to email me I will reply on my own terms and time. The immediacy of texts is what makes cell phones so insidious. People become foaming Pavlovian dogs when the cell phone chimes...
~~~~
For people who are so attached to their cell phones, that's it's almost like they've grown another appendage, there is no longer any purposeful connectivity between them and their surrounding environment. Non-stop chatting and texting on these devices indicates one of three things: 1.) The users have (or on their way to developing) an obsessive-compulsive disorder; 2.) They are extremely self-absorbed; or 3.) They're using the cell phones as an avoidance mechanism. To those who might fit into any of these categories, here's some advice: watch out where you're going, don't get behind the wheel when you're chatting or texting, and remember to make time for your loved ones...
~~~~
don't forget the idiots who text while driving, talk about selfish...
~~~~
Remember: when you're on a cell phone, it really is All About You. Including buses who will always courteously stop while you're obliviously jaywalking.
~~~~
I would never sell fish, even if I had a cell phone. Let them catch their own!
~~~~
Remember when after seeing a movie you would linger in the lobby and talk about it with your friends and maybe a few strangers.
Now it's a bunch of narcissistic nitwits on their phones tweeting or updating their facebook status to a bunch of people they barely know, while ignoring the people they're with.
~~~~
Yes! and I remember when movies had intermissions (either it was a long picture or a double-feature) and talking with strangers who were really into the show. Last time I did that was in the '80's at the Surf Theatre - evening during a Kurosawa film fest...have people forgotten how to interact face-to-face?
~~~~
Some thoughts. Some commenters whose replies I didn't print here are angry at the article. They say you only notice selfish people because of their phones and their loud conversation. I differ. I think phones have made rudeness the new "normal" and that we now have to deal with distracted people in ways that are actually life-threatening (they get behind the wheel). It's a cultural thing, a monkey-see-monkey-do kind of thing.
And there are these comments by people who think the study wasn't done properly. They may be correct about this. However, the study confirms my overall impressions of a change in the way people communicate, the way they respect or disrespect others in their space, and the way they avoid or engage with human contact. I did study communications in school, and it's remained an interest bordering on obsession---communication. It is a thread that connects us all, a survival tool; and it changes depending on the technology. Communicating via smoke signal is going to be different than communicating by cell phone, and you don't need a study to see the differences. The comments confirm that it's not just me--many people feel alienated and insulted by the neverending parade of distracted people. I also don't like talking to people on cell phones because they are open radios. Anyone can listen; and the sound is awful and drops out, cuts off. You might be in the middle of a really important conversation, on a topic which speaks to your deepest heart. The heartlessness of being cut off is always present. And there's deniability, too; anyone using a cell phone can fake being "cut off", so it diminishes honesty, as well.
Here are the comments from the people who say the study wasn't done properly.
Were those same students asked when they hadn't just used their phones?
If not, there's a confound: the same students who yak on the phone a lot and are more likely to have been yakking on it recently, are also the selfish ones.
Sounds like another "study" without a decent control.
Responses:
And the conclusion that it's the cellphones that *cause* selfishness is unwarranted (at least based on this article). Correlation does not equal causation...
and:
Daisy0072 has hit it exactly on the head. This isn't cause and effect, it's effect and cause.
It's not that the cell phone causes the selfishness (as much as the blog author wants to believe this about her husband), it's that the selfishness causes the self-absorbed constant cell phone use.
To be at all meaningful, this would have to deal with separate groups that use cell phones equally, and somehow just time the requests either quickly after a call or longer after a call. There is no indication this was done.
(Indeed, it may be impossible. The truly selfish probably never have a long interval off the cellphone.)
There is definitely a correlation here--but blaming the cellphone for the boorish behavior is like saying that people who wear XXXXL clothes are fat, therefore wearing XXXXL clothes causes obesity.
Just one more observation and I'm out. There is an absolutely astonishing number of deleted comments on this story. The Chronicle says they are comments by "a user who has been blocked by our staff." I don't think I've ever seen so many deleted comments on a story.
Since newspapers *do* rely on that telecom ad revenue I can't help but feel suspicious about the number of deleted comments.
The tipping point was the images on the covers. They were images one should not see without some kind of preparation. For example, I'm sure that young Afghani woman was relieved to have a new nose, after she was shown on TIME's cover without one...but the context in which that image appeared (supporting the Afghan war) made me unspeakably sad, and hit me like a ton of bricks.
But there are often excellent pieces in TIME that you don't find elsewhere and here is one.
Is Your Cell Phone Making You A Jerk?
Cell phones keep us socially connected, but new research suggests they actually reduce users’ social consciousness. In fact, the study showed that cell phone use was linked to more selfish behavior.
Researchers from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business found that after a short period of cell phone use, people were less likely to partake in “prosocial” behavior — actions that are intended to help another person or society — compared with a control group. For example, after using a cell phone, study participants were more likely to turn down volunteer opportunities and were less persistent in completing word problems, even though they knew their answers would provide money for charity.
Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2012/02/20/is-your-cell-phone-making-you-a-jerk/#ixzz2DlbztbrF
I liked this comment from the San Francisco Chronicle reader responding to their coverage of the study:
Personally, I pay for my cell phone and I will answer or not answer calls and texts as it suits me. I will not be a slave to the phone and I definitely will not pay for the privilege of being a slave to a device. I have told people, including family members, if you want to be sure I always pick up when you call, you'll have to pay my phone bill. I have told friends they can come over to visit or they can call/text others - what they can't do is come to visit me and then spend all their time on the phone to others.
Don't waste my time! I freely acknowledge the selfishness of my position and don't give a damn!
Amy Graff wrote for the Chronicle:
This is a small study that hasn’t even been peer-reviewed but I think it begins to get at a major problem with cell phones: People become self-absorbed when they use them. I’d love to see a study looking at how people act selfishly while on their phones—stealing parking spaces, cutting in line at Starbucks, running other drivers out of their lanes—in everyday life. I’ve too often seen people fail to pick up their dogs’ droppings and parents neglect their kids because they’re gabbing on their phones. (I know that I’ve been guilty of it with my own children.) Cell phones are addictive and when you hear the bell call, it’s hard to ignore—even if you’re at the park playing with your kids.
The other weekend my husband and I found ourselves in an unusual situation without the kids for a couple hours. We both needed to work but squeezed in a walk to spend some quality alone time together.
About five minutes into our stroll, his iPhone beeped. He pulled out his phone and responded to the text…and then he sent another text and another and another. Fifteen minutes later he was still fully absorbed in his phone—and acting as if I didn’t even exist.
I was annoyed and told him. He made me feel like a nag for complaining. The texts were related to work, he told me.
“Can’t you give me 30 minutes of your time on a Saturday afternoon?” I said.
And then his phone beeped again…
The above might be the reason I've become even more reclusive than I ever used to be. I can't stand my time being wasted by people who are right there in my space who can't be in the present. Going out to dinner and having to compete with a device for attention is not my idea of a fun time, and, so, I go out to dinner less and less these days with friends. I just thank heaven my baby isn't addicted to his phone.
Oh yeah, they put tumors in your head, too.
Another person's comment was music to my Luddite ears:
Society was better when everything was human and manual: no software, no electronics, no electrical motor, no gasoline motor, no steam engine. Wind mills probably okay. Everything that needed to be done was done by a human.
Also, no guns and ammunition: if you wanted to fight and kill (in war or crime), you must be close enough to be personal.
There are so many other comments that say what I've been thinking for years and I can't help reprinting them here.
They are comforting to read because as I look around every day, I get to feeling really lonely and uncertain about the future. IE: If these next generations are supposedly going to run things one day, what kind of decisions will they make?
Cell phones and especially "smart phones" do whatever the opposite is to meditating and living in the moment, they subtract you from your surroundings isolate you from yourself, the world and the others. To he'll with apps and games and fb, use it when really needed only.
REPLY (13) (1) POPULARITY: 12 | | [Report Abuse]
1 reply
furtherstill 7:38 PM on February 19, 2012
As someone who used to meditate on koans while waiting for public transit, I must say, indeed. When cellphones started to massively proliferate 15 or so years ago, I realized that introspection was dying amongst its last unwilling holdouts. It's now dead and buried for those that most needed it.
Now I find myself living in a world populated by witless adherents to a combination of both the Orwellian and Huxleyian nightmares.
~~~~~
Continuously amused by "studies" that imply that one technology or another breeds a certain, usually antisocial, behavior. Video games do not cause violence, pornography does not cause sexual deviancy and cell phones do not cause people to be selfish. What these technologies MAY do is bring to the surface preexisting behavior, but that concept doesn't sell many papers...
My response to that: No, that concept might not sell papers, but ad revenue from cell phone companies keeps papers in business, so said papers are continuously full of endorsements for cell phones.
Continuous yakking and gibbering of the braying donkey is at an all time high. Having a life, social interaction and common sense is...uncommon.
I use my phone least as it is best. It is for outgoing calls and I seldom answer incoming calls. It runs me about $20 monthly and that folks IS priceless.
~~~
"Self Phones"
~~~~
Thanks for mentioning parents on cell phones ignoring their children. I have seen mothers in grocery stores so often, on the phone, while their children trail vacant-eyed behind them. I just hope we aren't raising a generation of emotionally damaged, or even psychopathic, children (I keep thinking of that experiment with the wire, and the towel-and-wire, ersatz monkey mothers...)
~~~~
This reminds me of the wireless ad with the kinda weird-looking young woman with the bangs that is on her phone every minutes of the day, while walking the dog, ordering food, riding the bus, ...
Get off the phone, idiot. It is not normal to be staring at an electronic device all day, ESPECIALLY when there are other human beings present.
~~~~
Turn off your cell phone, get off facebook, and live damn it!
~~~~
The government wants a nation of cell phone zombies. If it threatened to remove their teleco crack pushers, the vast majority of the braindead would agree to do anything to resume their addiction.
~~~~
I am afraid the consensus is in, Homeland Insecurity will have roaming officers to SMASH peoples cell phones at random who are crossing the street yakking on it. We all wish it hadn't come to this, but it has. Let's call this Operation: Scared Straight. Yes, I like that. Now Officers, get-a-smashing. ((Yes, same old same old: I am liberal and a strong civil libertarian.))
~~~~
Hold on just a sec, I gotta take this call and then I'll write my comments.......
~~~~~
You really need a study to show this?
~~~~
I suspect smartphone-addicted people are less selfish, and instead just suffering from severe attention deficit disorder, which comes off as self-obsession in the company of others. It's what happens when one is glued to the Facebook app. I rarely give these folks the time of day, because it's way way more difficult to engage them. Sorry smartphone geeks.
~~~~
How would you feel if asked to turn your device off (or leave it in a basket at the front door) when visiting a friend or family member? Would that offend you? Make you feel "disconnected" or "cut off"? What is the purpose of immediate "connectivity" if you can't connect with those immediately in your presence?
~~~~
It is not ok and is rude to answer a phone while someone is having a conversation with you. How would you feel if someone opened a newspaper and started to read it while he/she was talking with you. If it's an emergency situation, run out the door and answer the phone, but if not; leaving a friend to wait for you to end your "more important" conversation is not right. When ever that happens to me, I walk away from the person. Sometimes they get angry, but that is THEIR problem. They caused it.
~~~~
People on cell phones in public are neither here nor there.
~~~~
They're self obsessed with some other self-obsessed person on the other end...they can have each other. The older you get the more you appreciate solitude, autonomy and not being bothered every five minutes. First thing I did when I got my cell phone was disconnect texting. You want to email me I will reply on my own terms and time. The immediacy of texts is what makes cell phones so insidious. People become foaming Pavlovian dogs when the cell phone chimes...
~~~~
For people who are so attached to their cell phones, that's it's almost like they've grown another appendage, there is no longer any purposeful connectivity between them and their surrounding environment. Non-stop chatting and texting on these devices indicates one of three things: 1.) The users have (or on their way to developing) an obsessive-compulsive disorder; 2.) They are extremely self-absorbed; or 3.) They're using the cell phones as an avoidance mechanism. To those who might fit into any of these categories, here's some advice: watch out where you're going, don't get behind the wheel when you're chatting or texting, and remember to make time for your loved ones...
~~~~
don't forget the idiots who text while driving, talk about selfish...
~~~~
Remember: when you're on a cell phone, it really is All About You. Including buses who will always courteously stop while you're obliviously jaywalking.
~~~~
I would never sell fish, even if I had a cell phone. Let them catch their own!
~~~~
Remember when after seeing a movie you would linger in the lobby and talk about it with your friends and maybe a few strangers.
Now it's a bunch of narcissistic nitwits on their phones tweeting or updating their facebook status to a bunch of people they barely know, while ignoring the people they're with.
~~~~
Yes! and I remember when movies had intermissions (either it was a long picture or a double-feature) and talking with strangers who were really into the show. Last time I did that was in the '80's at the Surf Theatre - evening during a Kurosawa film fest...have people forgotten how to interact face-to-face?
~~~~
Some thoughts. Some commenters whose replies I didn't print here are angry at the article. They say you only notice selfish people because of their phones and their loud conversation. I differ. I think phones have made rudeness the new "normal" and that we now have to deal with distracted people in ways that are actually life-threatening (they get behind the wheel). It's a cultural thing, a monkey-see-monkey-do kind of thing.
And there are these comments by people who think the study wasn't done properly. They may be correct about this. However, the study confirms my overall impressions of a change in the way people communicate, the way they respect or disrespect others in their space, and the way they avoid or engage with human contact. I did study communications in school, and it's remained an interest bordering on obsession---communication. It is a thread that connects us all, a survival tool; and it changes depending on the technology. Communicating via smoke signal is going to be different than communicating by cell phone, and you don't need a study to see the differences. The comments confirm that it's not just me--many people feel alienated and insulted by the neverending parade of distracted people. I also don't like talking to people on cell phones because they are open radios. Anyone can listen; and the sound is awful and drops out, cuts off. You might be in the middle of a really important conversation, on a topic which speaks to your deepest heart. The heartlessness of being cut off is always present. And there's deniability, too; anyone using a cell phone can fake being "cut off", so it diminishes honesty, as well.
Here are the comments from the people who say the study wasn't done properly.
Were those same students asked when they hadn't just used their phones?
If not, there's a confound: the same students who yak on the phone a lot and are more likely to have been yakking on it recently, are also the selfish ones.
Sounds like another "study" without a decent control.
Responses:
And the conclusion that it's the cellphones that *cause* selfishness is unwarranted (at least based on this article). Correlation does not equal causation...
and:
Daisy0072 has hit it exactly on the head. This isn't cause and effect, it's effect and cause.
It's not that the cell phone causes the selfishness (as much as the blog author wants to believe this about her husband), it's that the selfishness causes the self-absorbed constant cell phone use.
To be at all meaningful, this would have to deal with separate groups that use cell phones equally, and somehow just time the requests either quickly after a call or longer after a call. There is no indication this was done.
(Indeed, it may be impossible. The truly selfish probably never have a long interval off the cellphone.)
There is definitely a correlation here--but blaming the cellphone for the boorish behavior is like saying that people who wear XXXXL clothes are fat, therefore wearing XXXXL clothes causes obesity.
Just one more observation and I'm out. There is an absolutely astonishing number of deleted comments on this story. The Chronicle says they are comments by "a user who has been blocked by our staff." I don't think I've ever seen so many deleted comments on a story.
Since newspapers *do* rely on that telecom ad revenue I can't help but feel suspicious about the number of deleted comments.
Can't Add LinkedIn Recommendations
To contact us Click HERE
This apparently isn't a new problem.
How long does it take to fix this "bug"?
This isn't complicated software and it doesn't happen elsewhere.
Is it "incompetence"? As a friend just suggested?
Or are certain people who write and say controversial things targeted and hacked?
In this day and age of high-tech spying, cameras on the ceiling and in public, fusion centers and surveillance of communications----is it unreasonable or paranoid to feel like maybe there's a design, and it's not incompetent?
Because to not consider that, seems ......well, fuck, I don't know.
There's a really nice recommendation by a Baylor compadre, who said such lovely things that I wish his endorsement would show up on my profile. But it doesn't. It does show up in my list of recommendations, unlike the other rec's I've gotten notice on lately. It tells me to click a link to un-hide it. I do this, and it does ..nothing. Again and again. I cannot unhide this rec.
How long does it take to fix this "bug"?
This isn't complicated software and it doesn't happen elsewhere.
Is it "incompetence"? As a friend just suggested?
Or are certain people who write and say controversial things targeted and hacked?
In this day and age of high-tech spying, cameras on the ceiling and in public, fusion centers and surveillance of communications----is it unreasonable or paranoid to feel like maybe there's a design, and it's not incompetent?
Because to not consider that, seems ......well, fuck, I don't know.
There's a really nice recommendation by a Baylor compadre, who said such lovely things that I wish his endorsement would show up on my profile. But it doesn't. It does show up in my list of recommendations, unlike the other rec's I've gotten notice on lately. It tells me to click a link to un-hide it. I do this, and it does ..nothing. Again and again. I cannot unhide this rec.
12 Aralık 2012 Çarşamba
The World Is Watching: Fukushima Dai-Ichi Unit 4
To contact us Click HERE
Image Source: thelivingmoon.com
Fairewinds Energy Education's Arnie Gundersen, who has run nuclear plants in the U.S., on why all eyes are on Dai-Ichi Unit 4. Source: tv.globalresearch.ca
...What is it about Fukushima-Daiichi Unit 4 that has everyone concerned? There are 4 reactors in jeopardy at Fukushima-Daiichi. But everyone's attention now has been focused on the fuel pool at Fukushima-Daiichi Unit 4. Why is that? Well, in the Mark I design, there is no containment over the fuel pool. And that means that if there is a problem in the fuel pool, there is nothing to trap the radiation and prevent it from going airborne. At Fukushima-Daiichi, Unit 4 though, an entire nuclear fuel core had just recently been removed from the containment, from the nuclear reactor, and was put into the spent fuel pool. That is what makes Daiichi Unit 4 unique. It has got an entire nuclear core, out of the reactor, out of the containment, and in the fuel pool. Related to that though, is the fact that Fukushima-Daiichi 4 is also damaged. There is a bulge in the bottom of it and I believe it is something called a first mode Euler strut bulge. And it clearly is an indication of a seismic damage. This is not something that happened from the explosion. The building has been damaged from a seismic event. So Daiichi Unit 4 has an entire nuclear core out of the containment in a spent fuel pool and the building it is housed in, has been previously damaged by the explosions in the building and by the seismic events that occurred since March 11th of 2011. That is why all eyes in the world are focussed on what is going on in Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4.
....It is clear that a single nuclear fuel bundle can burn in air. Now Fukushima-Daiichi Unit 4 would be even worse. Inside Daiichi's fuel pool, are 1500 fuel bundles, not one, 1500 fuel bundles, 300 of which are just removed from the nuclear core. So instead of one very hot bundle, we have got 300 very hot bundles.
Now it is even worse than that. The Japanese put all of their nuclear fuel from this latest core offload in a very confined space in the pool. In America, we do not do that. We call it checker-boarding. We will put hot nuclear fuel next to cold nuclear fuel in a checkerboard pattern so that there is a gap between them. But the Japanese did not do that. This entire nuclear core is side by side by side with other physically hot bundles.
So, is a fuel pool fire possible at Fukushima-Daiichi? We have got the video evidence to show it is. What can make it happen is the real question.
...The real problem is if there is an earthquake. The building is already structurally damaged and if the pool were to drain from an earthquake, then all bets are off. There is no way to cool the pool and we know that the heat source is astronomical. The fuel in the pool would catch fire, and the uranium that is then encased in the zircaloy, would go airborne.
...What can we do about it? We can put the pressure on Tokyo Electric and on the Japanese Government to get the fuel out of that pool just as quickly as possible. We cannot wait for an earthquake to be proven right or wrong. In the United States, we can demand that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission take the fuel out of these fuel pools in the 23 nuclear reactors that are identical to Fukushima-Daiichi. Right now, industry pressure to save money is preventing those fuel pools from being emptied.
Image Source: thelivingmoon.com
Fairewinds Energy Education's Arnie Gundersen, who has run nuclear plants in the U.S., on why all eyes are on Dai-Ichi Unit 4. Source: tv.globalresearch.ca
...What is it about Fukushima-Daiichi Unit 4 that has everyone concerned? There are 4 reactors in jeopardy at Fukushima-Daiichi. But everyone's attention now has been focused on the fuel pool at Fukushima-Daiichi Unit 4. Why is that? Well, in the Mark I design, there is no containment over the fuel pool. And that means that if there is a problem in the fuel pool, there is nothing to trap the radiation and prevent it from going airborne. At Fukushima-Daiichi, Unit 4 though, an entire nuclear fuel core had just recently been removed from the containment, from the nuclear reactor, and was put into the spent fuel pool. That is what makes Daiichi Unit 4 unique. It has got an entire nuclear core, out of the reactor, out of the containment, and in the fuel pool. Related to that though, is the fact that Fukushima-Daiichi 4 is also damaged. There is a bulge in the bottom of it and I believe it is something called a first mode Euler strut bulge. And it clearly is an indication of a seismic damage. This is not something that happened from the explosion. The building has been damaged from a seismic event. So Daiichi Unit 4 has an entire nuclear core out of the containment in a spent fuel pool and the building it is housed in, has been previously damaged by the explosions in the building and by the seismic events that occurred since March 11th of 2011. That is why all eyes in the world are focussed on what is going on in Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4.
....It is clear that a single nuclear fuel bundle can burn in air. Now Fukushima-Daiichi Unit 4 would be even worse. Inside Daiichi's fuel pool, are 1500 fuel bundles, not one, 1500 fuel bundles, 300 of which are just removed from the nuclear core. So instead of one very hot bundle, we have got 300 very hot bundles.
Now it is even worse than that. The Japanese put all of their nuclear fuel from this latest core offload in a very confined space in the pool. In America, we do not do that. We call it checker-boarding. We will put hot nuclear fuel next to cold nuclear fuel in a checkerboard pattern so that there is a gap between them. But the Japanese did not do that. This entire nuclear core is side by side by side with other physically hot bundles.
So, is a fuel pool fire possible at Fukushima-Daiichi? We have got the video evidence to show it is. What can make it happen is the real question.
...The real problem is if there is an earthquake. The building is already structurally damaged and if the pool were to drain from an earthquake, then all bets are off. There is no way to cool the pool and we know that the heat source is astronomical. The fuel in the pool would catch fire, and the uranium that is then encased in the zircaloy, would go airborne.
...What can we do about it? We can put the pressure on Tokyo Electric and on the Japanese Government to get the fuel out of that pool just as quickly as possible. We cannot wait for an earthquake to be proven right or wrong. In the United States, we can demand that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission take the fuel out of these fuel pools in the 23 nuclear reactors that are identical to Fukushima-Daiichi. Right now, industry pressure to save money is preventing those fuel pools from being emptied.
Comments Deleted From SFGate.com And Other Sites
To contact us Click HERE
Google says Censorship requests up 71 percent in the first half of 2012, according to the San Francisco Chronicle (?) SFGate.com.
"Google said Tuesday that government requests that it remove content from its search results and other services rose by 71 percent in the first half of the year."
Nifty, huh...
San Francisco Chronicle's comment deletion policy is the subject of this 2007 post at
InvestigateTheMedia.blogspot.com.
The San Francisco Chronicle has recently activated a devious system by which it deceives commenters on its website, SFGate.com. Here's how it works:
If you make a comment on an article posted at SFGate, and if the site moderators then subsequently delete your comment for whatever reason, it will only appear as deleted to the other readers. HOWEVER, your comment will NOT appear to be deleted if viewed from your own computer! The Chronicle's goal is to trick deleted commenters into not knowing their comments were in fact deleted. I'll give evidence below showing how they do this.
In this follow-up piece InvestigateTheMedia converses with SFGate.com's representative about the issue.
I left this comment on the post directly above:
I have been noticing a large number of comment deletions on SFgate.com and did a search and found this post. It is December of 2012. Your post here was made years ago.
The first story I noticed with heavy deletions is linked here:
http://blog.sfgate.com/sfmoms/2012/02/17/study-cell-phones-make-people-selfish/
The second such article in a week I've found with a curious amount of deletions is here:
http://www.sfgate.com/news/articleComments/Gauging-the-pros-and-cons-of-smart-meters-3259771.php
These are health and environmental issues and, as such, the deletion policy of the San Francisco Chronicle is starting to seem pretty interesting to me.
To my knowledge the L.A. Times, my local paper, doesn't delete comments anymore. At one time it seemed apparent that this was happening. I wrote a couple of letters to the Times about it, and blogged about it at my blogspot site. If they are still deleting comments, then they're doing it discreetly--ie, the average reader does not know that comments have been deleted because there is no message indicating deletion as there is at the Chronicle site.
Since these newspapers are essentially talkless talk-radio on a public bulletin board site, they are sources of important local feedback on various issues. In fact, newspapers could really profit from this if they pulled their collective heads out and recognized the importance of these conversations, which are ---ostensibly--open to all, and read by many in positions of influence. So the policies on these conversations are very interesting to me...thank you for your post.
More from InvestigateTheMedia:
The PBS blog "MediaShift" recently had an interview with Rich Skrenta, the former CEO of a commenting-forum-software company called Topix, in which he bragged about this capability in his company's product:
There’s a lot of tricks in it. For instance, if you are banned from the forums, you can actually still post, and see your own posts, but other people don’t see them. That’s a neat social trick, because if you know you’ve been banned, most people will work around that. They’ll clear their cookies and work to figure out how to get around the block; but if they don’t know they’ve been banned, and they seem to be able to post, it won’t do any harm to the environment.
Another software company called Prospero supposedly also makes commenting software with this crypto-deletion feature. However, I don't know for sure if SFGate uses either the Topix or Prospero software. (Hat tip: MonkeySon)
[UPDATE 2, Sat., 11-24-07, 2:20pm]: Reader Documents "Graylist" of Banned SFGate Users Who Don't Know They're Banned
ITM commenter "Bricology" has just documented that, at least in some cases, the comment-deletions on SFGate are automated; that all comments from certain users who have been secretly banned from the site are immediately deleted automatically; but that such deletions are not visible to the banned commenter himself. Thus, he never knows that he has been banned.
DJKonservo documents comment censorship at Thinkprogress.com, too.
Here's a colorful comment:
DAMMMMMM BRO!!!!!
I wondered what the fuck was going on at SFGATE with my postings! I think you nailed it good. it was like I was invisible to the other people there. Never got a Rec on some articles even though the others got plenty. I wonder like what is HAPPENING here??? I thought my cache was screwed up or I didn't know what, but now that you explained it I'm slapping my forehead and Dammmmm......that is IT! It felt like my postings were removed but I could still see them. I'm gonna try to find the old threads and check 'em out on a different machine. I'm pretty positive my stuff'll be missing.
Great digging Bro. I got an email about your post. I'll send it to others I know.
And another:
I'm reminded of the old comedy routine about the depressed man who goes to a psychologist and lays down on the couch and talks for an hour straight, revealing all his secrets, yet his life is so boring that the psychologist has secretly fallen asleep, and murmurs "Mmm-hmmm, mmm-hmmm" as he dreams. At the end of the hour the patient abruptly says "Thanks doc!" and wakes up the psychologist, to whom the patient says, "Your the best listener I've ever encountered! I feel so much better!"
The readers at the SFGate are just like that pathetic depressed man, imagining that the world is listening to them, when in fact their comments have been deleted and no one is listening at all.
This whole thing feels like a fairy tale, about a mute fool who thinks he is speaking, but who says nothing.
The San Francisco Chronicle should be ashamed of itself.
And finally---an indication that this might happen on more articles than the two that caught my attention:
Robert Holmgren said...
I have noticed that the Chronicle website has an unusually high number of deleted comments at the end of their stories. Good to know they're protecting other readers from knowing too much.
cookylooky said...
After the comments have been removed by SFGate they are still [link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache]CACHED[/link] on the writer's computer and are therefore still visible to the author. This is an issue with your computer not with SFGate.
To clear your cache, go to the TOOLS key click on CLEAR PRIVATE DATA and then when the clear options appear mark cache and hit the CLEAR PRIVATE DATA key. Now the cache which includes your posted remarks will be cleared on your computer. Sign back into SFGate and you'll see that your remarks have been deleted. In essence your computer is fooling you it isn't SFGate.
And Jimjams:
cookylooky: You're wrong. I just tried what you suggested, and I deleted my cache, and even afterwards my comment was still visible when viewed from my account. Also, it goes against the experiences of many other people who now have tested it out at SFGate, and discovered that my original claims were accurate.
If you can PROVE your claims about cache-clearing fixing the problem, using screenshots or whatever, I'd be glad to check out the evidence. But I suspect you were just taking a guess. Sorry.
And here's something really interesting:
Bricology said...
As a postscript -- What's particularly ironic to me is that, AFAIK, I've never had a comment deleted on SFGate for any reason, but I have gotten a number of e-mails from SFGate Comments editors, asking for permission to reprint my comments in actual news articles. I've screen-grabbed the e-mails below (redacting their personal info, and mine):
http://tinyurl.com/3acfm7
http://tinyurl.com/3bpw8m
As you can see, the most recent one was 2 months ago, shortly before my posting tapered off due to questions about why it seemed that no one else was reading them. So if SFGate is interested in quoting me, and I never violated the TOU, why did I get "graylisted"? The only conclusion I can draw is that some individual there personally doesn't agree with my posts.
It doesn't matter to me. Whether it's the computer or the newspaper. Contributors should be notified when they're blocked. When there are so many comments deleted, one really wonders what's going on.
I don't want to believe Evgeny Morosov when he says the Net won't save the world, but I'm starting to believe it is not effective for communications. Information retrieval maybe---in a limited sense; but any device that f's with human communication as much as the computer really ought to be approached with a clear understanding of where the communications are going and who hears or sees them. We have no idea what the people running Computerland or Google are actually doing. I do know this---my Google searches, in the past, turned up a lot more in the way of independent blog sites, one-person sites. These days, the search results are limited. For example, you could search for a five-word phrase in quotes and Google would find a number of sites saying that exact phrase. Depending on the phrase, Google now might turn up one or two sites--or none.
I do notice the difference, and it is a difference in that fewer results come up; and this makes me wonder, "Are there no sites on earth that say those words in that order? Because I used to get them all the time..."
Here's an example of what SFGate.com (apparently not one and the same as the San Francisco Chronicle according to its comments rep) is doing to the discussions on its site:
Name withheld 1:28 PM on July 5, 2010
This comment was left by a user who has been blocked by our staff.
4 replies
Name withheld 1:31 PM on July 5, 2010
This comment was left by a user who has been blocked by our staff.
Name withheld 2:04 PM on July 5, 2010
This comment was left by a user who has been blocked by our staff.
lilacsunday 2:21 PM on July 5, 2010
why not now, it's voluntary for now. The article quotes regulators as saying that smart meters are part of a plan to get people to use less electricity. When we don't fall in line, they'll change the rate structure. It's inevitable.
(2) (2) POPULARITY: 0 | | [Report Abuse]
Name withheld 2:26 PM on July 5, 2010
This comment was left by a user who has been blocked by our staff.
And:
Name withheld 12:28 PM on July 5, 2010
This comment was left by a user who has been blocked by our staff.
4 replies
Name withheld 12:31 PM on July 5, 2010
This comment was left by a user who has been blocked by our staff.
Name withheld 1:20 PM on July 5, 2010
This comment was left by a user who has been blocked by our staff.
peppy945 2:09 PM on July 5, 2010
Usage is measured without a smart meter, why-not. But the old meters can't signal back to the brain what time of day you're using electricity.
(2) (1) POPULARITY: 1 | | [Report Abuse]
Name withheld 3:03 PM on July 5, 2010
This comment was left by a user who has been blocked by our staff.
---So you see----LOTS and LOTS of contributions are being censored. I personally don't care if there's profanity. Could that many contributors really be worthy of deletion? As a reader, it's incredibly annoying.
That's from this 2010 "Smart" Meter story.
Google says Censorship requests up 71 percent in the first half of 2012, according to the San Francisco Chronicle (?) SFGate.com.
"Google said Tuesday that government requests that it remove content from its search results and other services rose by 71 percent in the first half of the year."
Nifty, huh...
San Francisco Chronicle's comment deletion policy is the subject of this 2007 post at
InvestigateTheMedia.blogspot.com.
The San Francisco Chronicle has recently activated a devious system by which it deceives commenters on its website, SFGate.com. Here's how it works:
If you make a comment on an article posted at SFGate, and if the site moderators then subsequently delete your comment for whatever reason, it will only appear as deleted to the other readers. HOWEVER, your comment will NOT appear to be deleted if viewed from your own computer! The Chronicle's goal is to trick deleted commenters into not knowing their comments were in fact deleted. I'll give evidence below showing how they do this.
In this follow-up piece InvestigateTheMedia converses with SFGate.com's representative about the issue.
I left this comment on the post directly above:
I have been noticing a large number of comment deletions on SFgate.com and did a search and found this post. It is December of 2012. Your post here was made years ago.
The first story I noticed with heavy deletions is linked here:
http://blog.sfgate.com/sfmoms/2012/02/17/study-cell-phones-make-people-selfish/
The second such article in a week I've found with a curious amount of deletions is here:
http://www.sfgate.com/news/articleComments/Gauging-the-pros-and-cons-of-smart-meters-3259771.php
These are health and environmental issues and, as such, the deletion policy of the San Francisco Chronicle is starting to seem pretty interesting to me.
To my knowledge the L.A. Times, my local paper, doesn't delete comments anymore. At one time it seemed apparent that this was happening. I wrote a couple of letters to the Times about it, and blogged about it at my blogspot site. If they are still deleting comments, then they're doing it discreetly--ie, the average reader does not know that comments have been deleted because there is no message indicating deletion as there is at the Chronicle site.
Since these newspapers are essentially talkless talk-radio on a public bulletin board site, they are sources of important local feedback on various issues. In fact, newspapers could really profit from this if they pulled their collective heads out and recognized the importance of these conversations, which are ---ostensibly--open to all, and read by many in positions of influence. So the policies on these conversations are very interesting to me...thank you for your post.
More from InvestigateTheMedia:
The PBS blog "MediaShift" recently had an interview with Rich Skrenta, the former CEO of a commenting-forum-software company called Topix, in which he bragged about this capability in his company's product:
There’s a lot of tricks in it. For instance, if you are banned from the forums, you can actually still post, and see your own posts, but other people don’t see them. That’s a neat social trick, because if you know you’ve been banned, most people will work around that. They’ll clear their cookies and work to figure out how to get around the block; but if they don’t know they’ve been banned, and they seem to be able to post, it won’t do any harm to the environment.
Another software company called Prospero supposedly also makes commenting software with this crypto-deletion feature. However, I don't know for sure if SFGate uses either the Topix or Prospero software. (Hat tip: MonkeySon)
[UPDATE 2, Sat., 11-24-07, 2:20pm]: Reader Documents "Graylist" of Banned SFGate Users Who Don't Know They're Banned
ITM commenter "Bricology" has just documented that, at least in some cases, the comment-deletions on SFGate are automated; that all comments from certain users who have been secretly banned from the site are immediately deleted automatically; but that such deletions are not visible to the banned commenter himself. Thus, he never knows that he has been banned.
DJKonservo documents comment censorship at Thinkprogress.com, too.
Here's a colorful comment:
DAMMMMMM BRO!!!!!
I wondered what the fuck was going on at SFGATE with my postings! I think you nailed it good. it was like I was invisible to the other people there. Never got a Rec on some articles even though the others got plenty. I wonder like what is HAPPENING here??? I thought my cache was screwed up or I didn't know what, but now that you explained it I'm slapping my forehead and Dammmmm......that is IT! It felt like my postings were removed but I could still see them. I'm gonna try to find the old threads and check 'em out on a different machine. I'm pretty positive my stuff'll be missing.
Great digging Bro. I got an email about your post. I'll send it to others I know.
And another:
I'm reminded of the old comedy routine about the depressed man who goes to a psychologist and lays down on the couch and talks for an hour straight, revealing all his secrets, yet his life is so boring that the psychologist has secretly fallen asleep, and murmurs "Mmm-hmmm, mmm-hmmm" as he dreams. At the end of the hour the patient abruptly says "Thanks doc!" and wakes up the psychologist, to whom the patient says, "Your the best listener I've ever encountered! I feel so much better!"
The readers at the SFGate are just like that pathetic depressed man, imagining that the world is listening to them, when in fact their comments have been deleted and no one is listening at all.
This whole thing feels like a fairy tale, about a mute fool who thinks he is speaking, but who says nothing.
The San Francisco Chronicle should be ashamed of itself.
And finally---an indication that this might happen on more articles than the two that caught my attention:
Robert Holmgren said...
I have noticed that the Chronicle website has an unusually high number of deleted comments at the end of their stories. Good to know they're protecting other readers from knowing too much.
cookylooky said...
After the comments have been removed by SFGate they are still [link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache]CACHED[/link] on the writer's computer and are therefore still visible to the author. This is an issue with your computer not with SFGate.
To clear your cache, go to the TOOLS key click on CLEAR PRIVATE DATA and then when the clear options appear mark cache and hit the CLEAR PRIVATE DATA key. Now the cache which includes your posted remarks will be cleared on your computer. Sign back into SFGate and you'll see that your remarks have been deleted. In essence your computer is fooling you it isn't SFGate.
And Jimjams:
cookylooky: You're wrong. I just tried what you suggested, and I deleted my cache, and even afterwards my comment was still visible when viewed from my account. Also, it goes against the experiences of many other people who now have tested it out at SFGate, and discovered that my original claims were accurate.
If you can PROVE your claims about cache-clearing fixing the problem, using screenshots or whatever, I'd be glad to check out the evidence. But I suspect you were just taking a guess. Sorry.
And here's something really interesting:
Bricology said...
As a postscript -- What's particularly ironic to me is that, AFAIK, I've never had a comment deleted on SFGate for any reason, but I have gotten a number of e-mails from SFGate Comments editors, asking for permission to reprint my comments in actual news articles. I've screen-grabbed the e-mails below (redacting their personal info, and mine):
http://tinyurl.com/3acfm7
http://tinyurl.com/3bpw8m
As you can see, the most recent one was 2 months ago, shortly before my posting tapered off due to questions about why it seemed that no one else was reading them. So if SFGate is interested in quoting me, and I never violated the TOU, why did I get "graylisted"? The only conclusion I can draw is that some individual there personally doesn't agree with my posts.
It doesn't matter to me. Whether it's the computer or the newspaper. Contributors should be notified when they're blocked. When there are so many comments deleted, one really wonders what's going on.
I don't want to believe Evgeny Morosov when he says the Net won't save the world, but I'm starting to believe it is not effective for communications. Information retrieval maybe---in a limited sense; but any device that f's with human communication as much as the computer really ought to be approached with a clear understanding of where the communications are going and who hears or sees them. We have no idea what the people running Computerland or Google are actually doing. I do know this---my Google searches, in the past, turned up a lot more in the way of independent blog sites, one-person sites. These days, the search results are limited. For example, you could search for a five-word phrase in quotes and Google would find a number of sites saying that exact phrase. Depending on the phrase, Google now might turn up one or two sites--or none.
I do notice the difference, and it is a difference in that fewer results come up; and this makes me wonder, "Are there no sites on earth that say those words in that order? Because I used to get them all the time..."
Here's an example of what SFGate.com (apparently not one and the same as the San Francisco Chronicle according to its comments rep) is doing to the discussions on its site:
Name withheld 1:28 PM on July 5, 2010
This comment was left by a user who has been blocked by our staff.
4 replies
Name withheld 1:31 PM on July 5, 2010
This comment was left by a user who has been blocked by our staff.
Name withheld 2:04 PM on July 5, 2010
This comment was left by a user who has been blocked by our staff.
lilacsunday 2:21 PM on July 5, 2010
why not now, it's voluntary for now. The article quotes regulators as saying that smart meters are part of a plan to get people to use less electricity. When we don't fall in line, they'll change the rate structure. It's inevitable.
(2) (2) POPULARITY: 0 | | [Report Abuse]
Name withheld 2:26 PM on July 5, 2010
This comment was left by a user who has been blocked by our staff.
And:
Name withheld 12:28 PM on July 5, 2010
This comment was left by a user who has been blocked by our staff.
4 replies
Name withheld 12:31 PM on July 5, 2010
This comment was left by a user who has been blocked by our staff.
Name withheld 1:20 PM on July 5, 2010
This comment was left by a user who has been blocked by our staff.
peppy945 2:09 PM on July 5, 2010
Usage is measured without a smart meter, why-not. But the old meters can't signal back to the brain what time of day you're using electricity.
(2) (1) POPULARITY: 1 | | [Report Abuse]
Name withheld 3:03 PM on July 5, 2010
This comment was left by a user who has been blocked by our staff.
---So you see----LOTS and LOTS of contributions are being censored. I personally don't care if there's profanity. Could that many contributors really be worthy of deletion? As a reader, it's incredibly annoying.
That's from this 2010 "Smart" Meter story.
Trouble Posting Comments Linking To This Website
To contact us Click HERE
I found this interesting blog, Initfortheparking.com, via Amazon.com and a review of this book.
Thought I'd leave a comment.
Tried twice.
This is a continuation of my comment trials on other sites.....first thing I tried was removing my website address from the field where it's supposed to be entered. This helped sometimes.
When it stopped helping, I started using a different email address, and that worked for a while.
I thought it would just be on some sites...on the controversial stuff that Big Bro doesn't want me yelling about, I guess.
But this woman's site isn't anything like that. And I still am not allowed to post a comment leaving the address of this website.
Kind of bums me out.
On the other hand, I am coming to the conclusion anyway that the Net has serious limitations, and so it really shouldn't surprise.
I don't consider this random or a computer glitch; I don't think it has anything to do with the computer I'm using; I do think it has to do with the controversial nature of the items I blog about here and that I comment about elsewhere.
I wonder if anyone else has had this problem.
Thought I'd leave a comment.
Tried twice.
This is a continuation of my comment trials on other sites.....first thing I tried was removing my website address from the field where it's supposed to be entered. This helped sometimes.
When it stopped helping, I started using a different email address, and that worked for a while.
I thought it would just be on some sites...on the controversial stuff that Big Bro doesn't want me yelling about, I guess.
But this woman's site isn't anything like that. And I still am not allowed to post a comment leaving the address of this website.
Kind of bums me out.
On the other hand, I am coming to the conclusion anyway that the Net has serious limitations, and so it really shouldn't surprise.
I don't consider this random or a computer glitch; I don't think it has anything to do with the computer I'm using; I do think it has to do with the controversial nature of the items I blog about here and that I comment about elsewhere.
I wonder if anyone else has had this problem.
Can't Add LinkedIn Recommendations
To contact us Click HERE
This apparently isn't a new problem.
How long does it take to fix this "bug"?
This isn't complicated software and it doesn't happen elsewhere.
Is it "incompetence"? As a friend just suggested?
Or are certain people who write and say controversial things targeted and hacked?
In this day and age of high-tech spying, cameras on the ceiling and in public, fusion centers and surveillance of communications----is it unreasonable or paranoid to feel like maybe there's a design, and it's not incompetent?
Because to not consider that, seems ......well, fuck, I don't know.
There's a really nice recommendation by a Baylor compadre, who said such lovely things that I wish his endorsement would show up on my profile. But it doesn't. It does show up in my list of recommendations, unlike the other rec's I've gotten notice on lately. It tells me to click a link to un-hide it. I do this, and it does ..nothing. Again and again. I cannot unhide this rec.
How long does it take to fix this "bug"?
This isn't complicated software and it doesn't happen elsewhere.
Is it "incompetence"? As a friend just suggested?
Or are certain people who write and say controversial things targeted and hacked?
In this day and age of high-tech spying, cameras on the ceiling and in public, fusion centers and surveillance of communications----is it unreasonable or paranoid to feel like maybe there's a design, and it's not incompetent?
Because to not consider that, seems ......well, fuck, I don't know.
There's a really nice recommendation by a Baylor compadre, who said such lovely things that I wish his endorsement would show up on my profile. But it doesn't. It does show up in my list of recommendations, unlike the other rec's I've gotten notice on lately. It tells me to click a link to un-hide it. I do this, and it does ..nothing. Again and again. I cannot unhide this rec.
THE WASHINGTON COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE AND DOWNEAST COMMUNITY HOSPITAL ARE TAKING BACK UNWANTED PRESCRIPTION DRUGS APRIL 30 AT HANNAFORD SUPER MARKET
To contact us Click HERE
Machias Maine– On April 30 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. the Washington County Sheriff's along with DownEast Community Hospital ] and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) will give the public another opportunity to prevent pill abuse and theft by ridding their homes of potentially dangerous expired, unused, and unwanted prescription drugs. Bring your medications to Hannaford Super Market US Route one Machias, The service is free and anonymous, no questions asked.
Last September, Americans turned in 242,000 pounds—121 tons—of prescription drugs at nearly 4,100 sites operated by the DEA and more than 3,000 state and local law enforcement partners.
This initiative addresses a vital public safety and public health issue. Medicines that languish in home cabinets are highly susceptible to diversion, misuse, and abuse. Rates of prescription drug abuse in the U.S. are alarmingly high, as are the number of accidental poisonings and overdoses due to these drugs. Studies show that a majority of abused prescription drugs are obtained from family and friends, including from the home medicine cabinet. In addition, Americans are now advised that their usual methods for disposing of unused medicines—flushing them down the toilet or throwing them in the trash—both pose potential safety and health hazards.
Four days after last fall’s event, Congress passed the Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act of 2010, which amends the Controlled Substances Act to allow an “ultimate user” of controlled substance medications to dispose of them by delivering them to entities authorized by the Attorney General to accept them. The Act also allows the Attorney General to authorize long term care facilities to dispose of their residents’ controlled substances in certain instances. DEA has begun drafting regulations to implement the Act, a process that can take as long as 24 months. Until new regulations are in place, local law enforcement agencies like The Washington County Sheriff's Office and the DEA will continue to hold prescription drug take-back events every few months.
Sheriff Doniie Smith
Washington County Sheriff's Office
Last September, Americans turned in 242,000 pounds—121 tons—of prescription drugs at nearly 4,100 sites operated by the DEA and more than 3,000 state and local law enforcement partners.
This initiative addresses a vital public safety and public health issue. Medicines that languish in home cabinets are highly susceptible to diversion, misuse, and abuse. Rates of prescription drug abuse in the U.S. are alarmingly high, as are the number of accidental poisonings and overdoses due to these drugs. Studies show that a majority of abused prescription drugs are obtained from family and friends, including from the home medicine cabinet. In addition, Americans are now advised that their usual methods for disposing of unused medicines—flushing them down the toilet or throwing them in the trash—both pose potential safety and health hazards.
Four days after last fall’s event, Congress passed the Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act of 2010, which amends the Controlled Substances Act to allow an “ultimate user” of controlled substance medications to dispose of them by delivering them to entities authorized by the Attorney General to accept them. The Act also allows the Attorney General to authorize long term care facilities to dispose of their residents’ controlled substances in certain instances. DEA has begun drafting regulations to implement the Act, a process that can take as long as 24 months. Until new regulations are in place, local law enforcement agencies like The Washington County Sheriff's Office and the DEA will continue to hold prescription drug take-back events every few months.
Sheriff Doniie Smith
Washington County Sheriff's Office
11 Aralık 2012 Salı
Taunting Panther's Fans Force Marine Amputee Out Of Moosehead Bar and Grill
To contact us Click HERE
On Sunday a U.S. Marine who lost both legs in Afghanistan was forced to leave Charlotte's Moosehead Bar and Grill along with his wife, parents and friends after another patron at the restaurant became verbally combative and the restaurant staff asked the Marine to leave.
According to the Charlotte Observer: "The incident happened after Garrett Carnes, his wife Courtney, their parents, and friends Brett and Nicole Coburn stopped at the restaurant for dinner after attending the Carolina Panthers’ game against Dallas. Several members of the party, including Garrett Carnes, were wearing Dallas Cowboys jerseys.
Coburn said that when the group reached the front door, the fan, who other patrons called Tank, was waiting for them."
“He was standing at the door, and he started harassing us because of the Cowboys jerseys,” Coburn said.
He said Tank told Garrett Carnes, “Don’t use your wheelchair as a crutch.”
According to multiple accounts of the incident, Carnes told the patron – and others who were ridiculing the group for being Cowboys’ fans – that he was a veteran and had lost his legs in Afghanistan.
Members of the Carnes-Coburn party tried to “defend ourselves verbally,” Brett Coburn said.
He said Tank walked toward Carnes in a threatening way, and some other patrons stepped in to break it up.
Neilsen said his employees are trained to separate possible combatants, in an effort to defuse such situations. On Sunday, staff members asked Garrett Carnes and his party to leave, while they took Tank to another area of the restaurant."
More about Garrett Carnes here and Deadspin picks up the story and takes in national here. The Daily Mail in the UK piled on this morning here.
Meanwhile the Moosehead Bar and Grill is getting slammed with neg comments on Yelp which is here. Moosehead's Yelp rating has "Tanked" to two stars out of five as Marines from across the nation hammer away at the four star rating the bar had this morning.
Cedar Posts suggests that Josh errr "Tank" may want to leave the state, or at least lay low for a few months. But as the following photos attest he just ain't that smart.
Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/10/25/3620757/marine-who-lost-legs-is-forced.html#storylink=cpy
According to the Charlotte Observer: "The incident happened after Garrett Carnes, his wife Courtney, their parents, and friends Brett and Nicole Coburn stopped at the restaurant for dinner after attending the Carolina Panthers’ game against Dallas. Several members of the party, including Garrett Carnes, were wearing Dallas Cowboys jerseys.
Coburn said that when the group reached the front door, the fan, who other patrons called Tank, was waiting for them."
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| Josh "Tank" Watts and friend at a Panthers game. |
He said Tank told Garrett Carnes, “Don’t use your wheelchair as a crutch.”
According to multiple accounts of the incident, Carnes told the patron – and others who were ridiculing the group for being Cowboys’ fans – that he was a veteran and had lost his legs in Afghanistan.
Members of the Carnes-Coburn party tried to “defend ourselves verbally,” Brett Coburn said.
He said Tank walked toward Carnes in a threatening way, and some other patrons stepped in to break it up.
Neilsen said his employees are trained to separate possible combatants, in an effort to defuse such situations. On Sunday, staff members asked Garrett Carnes and his party to leave, while they took Tank to another area of the restaurant."
More about Garrett Carnes here and Deadspin picks up the story and takes in national here. The Daily Mail in the UK piled on this morning here.
Meanwhile the Moosehead Bar and Grill is getting slammed with neg comments on Yelp which is here. Moosehead's Yelp rating has "Tanked" to two stars out of five as Marines from across the nation hammer away at the four star rating the bar had this morning.
Cedar Posts suggests that Josh errr "Tank" may want to leave the state, or at least lay low for a few months. But as the following photos attest he just ain't that smart.
 |
| Hey Marine Corps you guys suck! |
Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/10/25/3620757/marine-who-lost-legs-is-forced.html#storylink=cpy
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