chuck kottke

Zeno of Citium

Qatar U.A.E.

Oahu, Hawaii , good ol' U.S.A.

Oman

Mauna Loa :P or maybe Manitoba would be cooler! :cool: ok, ok. Mayaguez, Puerto Rico

Xerxes

Venus Flytrap

Fleetwood Mac Gypsy:sunny::hippy:

Could be the Gypsy in your Soul. To have lived in England, move to California, then retired in Hawaii.. yet still the meaning of place is in a state of flux. Here we all are, looking at supercolliders that may unravel or unveil the mysteries of the universe, or perhaps make them even more mysterious, string theory may not be the one-size fits all answer, along comes people power rising up like bread to make whole again the social fabric of the human cloud, and the band plays on.

Let's see.. starting computer in safe mode.. hm.. could be any number of things! With this beast here (not a laptop) it was starting in safe mode for no apparent reason, except something was making the system unstable. So, after many safemode starts, the power supply finally went out on it. Could that be the problem? How are the batteries? Safemode is when there's a problem booting the operating system or the system has instabilities I think (thinking back), so it flips into safemode. Or it could just be a loose screw floating around inside the computer. It could be something else too - but I would check the power supply first. Dells are bug prone as I am told, Apple is recommended by a local webmaster. Wish I knew more!! Safemode - can you boot it still from the regular system? Perhaps the troubleshooting mode might find the problem. Or else the hard drive is starting to go maybe..

Bruce Hornsby & the Range - The Valley Road

Welcome yoursao to Coldplaying! :hat: I think the image is fine, and your grasp of the English language is good considering how different our language groups are from one-another! Soon you'll be an expert at English - I just wish we could all learn Chinese.

Liberals and Conservatives are at most levels not the same. Perhaps only basic biology is shared in common. Government that is the arbiter of fair play is what is needed, not shrinking government down to some hamstrung institution, nor allowing government to become a corrupt tool of the plutocracy. Libertarianism is a nice ideal, but it's impractical. Get rid of the requirement of a driver's license? No agencies to oversee food safety? At-your-own risk banking? Been there, done that, not going back to the bad old days!

Lucy Larcom - great poet, great poetry! Lucy Larcom - Wikiquote

To LoryABjerre: El Presidente ? Oh maybe once when I was 12 or so, but all those crazy dreams kinda came and went. Trouble is what it takes to become President - to take the money and run (however it's offered these days) is to owe those who want favors; usually not good for the country or the world the way our system currently works. So I'm more interested in reform efforts. Thanks for the thought though! How about you? Head of the Swiss reserve maybe, redistribute the wealth? ;) To Reilly: How True!:laugh3:

> True, there are the underlying psychological aspects of people living for money and power; peacock feathers, tail fathers, and the desires - for control, or the fear of not being in control, and more - yes, the daffy comes out when society allows for such behavior to become dominant, I agree. I've heard it termed hyper-individualism, which has gone to excess. Baubles, gold, money, fancy cars, stocks and the like - what are they really? Symbols that connote things, mere objects, yet there is an inherent fascination with them (and the 'game' of competing for them) - we are attracted to sparkling simple forms, and society confers value on these things, so obsessions of behavior fixated on gaining more and more, plus the horse race that's run to get them takes a toll on social good - it's an obscene thing when it's taken too far, I agree. Marketing makes it all the worse, when they use all forms of messages to try and manipulate people's minds too - this ramps up the behavior quite a bit. People live in circumstances which vary however - the core of most religions is humbleness, compassion, empathy, and sharing with others; Many realize that collective goods are better than individual gains, for teams seek a collaborative synergy which propels the individuals within, and creates gains that no one alone could achieve. "team spirit" in essence, the oneness of a group. Perhaps often what is missing is empathy, the gift of having walked in some else's shoes so-to-speak, compassion for others - learned from infant on in life; learning to share to share in joy rather than hoard and live a life of reduced human potential. Some with wealth learn to see the higher value, but it takes time for them to develop those skills after a life lived competing and playing the money game, caught up in it as often people are. A passage from the Bible tells the story of a rich man who did right by the commandments, but asked Jesus what he was lacking to get to heaven. Jesus replied "If you want to be perfect, go sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." Upon hearing this, the rich man went away sad, because he was very wealthy and couldn't see parting with his own wealth. Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again, I tell you it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." Perhaps in a more modern sense, what one gives up is material possessions that bring short-term happiness and may confer superficial social status, but what one would gain from generosity is knowing that one's fellow man is healthier and happier, and that the love given comes back in kind in a shared sense, as well as through empathy - smiles are truly golden. So Bugs the aspiration wins out in the end over Daffy the perspiration, if the realization happens to the wealthy person (if Scrooge sees the light the next day, in essence). Those caught up in the race, or lost in the mindset of selfishness or ego may not ever come to this realization. Fear as much as powerlust plays a role I believe in keeping them shortsighted. That, and a group-think that reinforces their belief that they are somehow superior and entitled to their excess, and that messing with people's livelihood and minds is acceptable since it's a game and anything it takes to win that game is acceptable. That pretty much explains Wall Street's behavior, when unbridled capitalism crushes poor people and dupes investors globally, leading to a financial collapse the world is still reeling from. So, it's up to us - you and I and everyone who's enlightened and cares about fair play and justice, to promoting the well-being of our fellow human beings on the planet, to be part of the force that corrects bad behaviors and sets up a system which promotes the best in human nature. There are good companies, just as their are good teams with good team organizers and good individuals - it's a matter of getting back to systems of checks and balances, of clear oversight, of breaking up monopolies and oligopolies, of becoming more egalitarian and less plutocratic or autocratic. Then the better behaved companies will become dominant in the markets, the rules will be there to protect our rights, and a good day's pay will be the outcome for a hard day's work. Merit works as incentive, provided it's truly an honest system of assessing one's merit and promoting not just the individual, but the group to which that individual belongs when there is a collective improvement in how the group performs. I think group over individual, since teamwork is often the true force which gets things done. So, you never see a multinational give to the poor, or a rich man give his salaries to the poor community, except for Andrew Carnegie's endowment, or Gates' charitable giving, or a few others. They perhaps are the rare exceptions, and sometimes only offer a limited amount of their wealth back to the poor community, but then the matter with how we allow our systems of governance to become corrupt favors bad behavior, which ultimately we must correct. Egyptians are doing it, and so must we all. Greed and avarice are as old as civilization, and it is up to us to control and check the ill effects of these excesses. While the unfair plutocrats may try and pit citizen against citizen, it is up to us to set things strait, and not allow the corporate sociopaths to corrode out collective higher values. So, to despair from the present conditions I understand, but then to keep an eye on the prize and keep working towards that goal is where we must keep heading. "Don't give up the ship!":cool:

I think what's needed is the other half of globalization - global unions, global awareness of human rights as trump over "economic interests," reform of governments so they act as they should, as arbiters of fair play and as representatives of the will of the citizens writ large. And I think we are getting there, as struggle does inevitably bear the fruits of liberty and democracy, but not without human tolls. Checks and balances, an active educated voting citizenry, and an honest independent free press are essential to protecting and improving our rights; a balance between private interests and social institutions, where oversight is done by independent bodies composed of individuals selected by the citizens, not by a minority of wealthy plutocrats. Is there such a schism between east and west, when what we attribute to our modern Democracies arose in the Mediterranean Lands and the Middle East? It is the social concerns for growing prosperity and economic fairness which must be paramount above individual gains, for greater stability and equity in any nation to be achieved. Much in human culture is from shared efforts, and teamwork achieves what no individual can. It is up to us to right the wrongs done by a few that affect us all. We have been globalized for many centuries now; more and more today than in the past. It is up to us to uphold standards of decency and protect basic human rights, including the right to fair treatment in the economy and protection of the commons - the air we breath, the water we drink, the food we eat, the spaces where we live require our collective protection. Setting down fair standards for behavior in the market is essential, and an end to colonialism by corporate interests is in all our best interests.

18 years ago, GM had the answer! All GM has to do is make this a production vehicle - use a more modestly priced composite material (no big deal if one settles for an added couple hundred pounds vehicle weight), add the necessary crash protection, tweak things a little bit: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yxaV8zdEu4]YouTube - 1992 GM Ultralite running concept car[/ame] Back to the Future!:cool:

Thanks, but it's time for the teachers to stand up for themselves - seems like they're suddenly motivated to protect their right to collective bargaining! ;) Maybe this is the start of a movement in the U.S. to take back our country from the oligarchs?

Freedom of speech is for everyone, but our natural rights include the right to be respected by others and treated fairly - I think in many cases it's pretty obvious what's hurtful and baseless and what's not, and where it is appropriate or inappropriate. Just where you draw the line is sometimes an issue, but in the case of the funeral protests, I think there's little doubt the protesters should be arrested for basically hate speech. To me it's a matter of which right had the right-of-way. The right to respectful honest treatment, or the right to speech? A solder gets killed in combat, there's the family grieving over the loss as they bury their dead loved one, and along comes a band of protesters shouting angry hateful words at these family members - to me, the right of respect in public takes precedent over the right of speech in that situation. Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia > And to the above quote attributable to Pastor Niemoller, one might note that they came for the Jews during the NAZIS reign of terror because hateful speech and lies had so effectively convinced German citizens of that time period that people of the Jewish faith in Germany were culpable for the economic failure that had so crippled the economy, for Germany loosing WWI, and the hate speech had so effectively labeled Jews and other minorities as undesirable, that is was much easier for the NAZIS to order them labeled and deported to the concentration camps. So is freedom of speech the answer, or is respecting the right to honest speech and preventing non-slanderous speech the answer? The right to descent respect seems to be more important than unlimited freedom of speech in my mind.

I agree on the banning of hurtful speech at funerals - and speech that is clearly hurtful to one's character (if untrue) should be banned - basically any slanderous speech. The big problem here in the U.S. right now is unlimited political speech - basically, anyone with the bucks can buy as much air time and put out as much political rhetoric for or against a candidate that they want. Our Supreme Court's 5 member majority behaves in a manner that is political and has decided money talks during elections.

The wind howling outside, reminds me of this song: Chicago - Wishing You Were Here [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HhDAKuROEA]YouTube - Chicago Wishing You Were Here[/ame] :cool:

YAY!! It's a global uprising! :) (car related thing - government research on lithium batteries: Batteries - Home

>> Sure, "a slight step in the right direction" - the dinosaurs probably said the same thing, with predictable results. :sunny: Well, at least the birds made it out of the Jurassic period.. light and strong, well protected animals that they are. The safety vs. lightness issue is an obstacle to overcome, but today we can do better - if an eagle can come crashing down on a rabbit, it seems that we can make a vehicle that's both light and safe - whether the auto makers want to retool their factories is another matter though.. much of today's designs are built around the current manufacturing methods, so I think that's what is slowing down change. New designs = expensive retooling. What about the Mercedes Bionic? Any thoughts on that? (and just where are those pics, miss Kels? )

Happy Birthday Christa :sunny::sunny::sunny::sunny::sunny: