Watermonkey

I heard this morning that it's been confirmed that the bees' disappearance is being blamed on GMO crops. Unfortunately most of the alternate pollinators have been pushed away from crops and bees are actually trucked in to places like tree groves to do the work that, left to its own natural condition, some 4500 other potential pollinators such as wasps and butterflies would take care of. A full third of all the food you and I eat are available due to the bees, a quarter of which are missing. If something isn't done, food prices are going to go straight through the roof. I guess some of you don't give a crap because you don't pay the food bill. You'll feel it too, though. Eventually.

I'm sorry, but I need to correct you before too many people get confused. Herbal cigarettes are, as the name implies, herbal. They do not contain any tobacco. Some of them contain a mix of tobacco and herbs, but since nicotine comes from tobacco naturally, it follows that these cigarettes also contain that very addictive substance. Herbal cigarettes, in my opinion, are even more disgusting then nasty mainstream American cigarettes, but if you can tolerate them, then that's one way, I suppose, you can ween yourself off the tobacco ones while still keeping the "habit". Note, though, that smoke being inhaled into the lungs still is damaging to the lungs no matter what you smoke.

Ok. I finally watched all three parts of the video and I'm still confused about the different stories I've heard regarding the gold and diamonds recovered in the safe in the rubble. I remember perking my ears up when I saw that bit on the news at the time it happened, but I've never heard a satisfactory explanation or full disclosure of those events. One thing I've always known to be false and totally stupid is the whole cell phone call thing from the aircraft. Yeah, I know that skyphones were used in some of the [alleged] conversations, but the official story is that cell phones were used in most of them. I'm here to tell all of you: Cell phones were not used in any of those cases. As is outlined in the video (part III) and as I know from working as a technician in the wireless telecom industry, you're not going to connect a call with your cell phone from a plane flying over 200 MPH at any kind of altitude. Cell tower antennas are aimed down because that's where the users of their networks expect their phones to work. I have trouble making a call connect in an elevator in most buildings yet somehow these calls connected through the aluminum fuselages of aircraft traveling several hundred MPH at an altitude of twenty to thirty thousand feet? A cell phone call can not connect after a much smaller speed (I don't recall exactly what that speed is, if you want I'll research it, or you can do the same) because it needs time to sync up and establish a good connection. By the time this connection is established, you'd already be out of range of the tower. That one fact alone, without all the other problems with the official story, is enough to tell a thinking person there is a definite cover up. The next question should be WHY? What are they covering up they're afraid the population wouldn't like? What do they think would happen to them and their power over the sheeple if the herd woke up to their lies?

Maybe I should watch the video. I'm not someone who needs to be converted, we (my wife and I) listen to Alex Jones (http://www.infowars.com/) every morning on the internet stream and we're completely on board, but the Loose Change video says something about missing Gold? Correct me if I'm wrong here, but are they referring to the gold that was in the vault owned by the bank of Nova Scotia? I thought all that was recovered. In fact, what I'd heard was the the search for bodies was called off and everything went in to mass debris removal the day after all the gold and other contents of the vault was recovered in armored trucks. That's what disgusts many people about the very thought of Ruddy Gulliani running for President. Is that the gold you are talking about or was there other gold that came up missing? I'll go watch the video now...

Technically, alcohol is yeast piss. Just wanted to clarify that. When most yeast consume sugar they produce two waste products: alcohol and carbon dioxide (CO2). First time I heard it called that was when my Biology teacher in H.S. for no apparent reason spouted off a short lecture on the many attributes to being sober. Not sure if it was because he knew I was sneaking in mixed drinks with my orange juice or if his daughter was caught drinking, but he sure didn't approve of the stuff. Personally, I think it's all good, even some "natural" drugs like Ergot Fungus found growing wild on Rye or Peyote. There are many medicinal and spiritual benefits to using nature's bounty if only people would overcome their self-destructive urges to over-use and abuse them. Anyway, carry on. This is an interesting poll indeed...

I occurred to me a while ago that many of the writings on this forum are either from complete imbeciles or that many times people who are "contributing" are totally high or drunk. We got to discussing this in the shoutbox the other night and I decided to start a poll on the topic. I confess I'm not always totally sober when I'm on, but I've never been drunk either. Getting high isn't something I do anymore. Most people grow out of that sort of thing after they get out of college and have to face the real world. Alright, have at it! Are you high, drunk, high and drunk, or stone-cold sober? Have fun! (And drive carefully please

Devious? I think that accusation won?t sit well with some of the people you?re talking about. I?d consider revising that statement if I were you? -You allege that atheism has nothing to do with it, yet in the Communist Manifesto it clearly states, The Communist Manifesto was written by Carl Marx and Friedrich Engels and published in several languages including English in 1848. The entire construct of the socialist (and therefore communist by definition) system of government rests upon many institutions without which it would be vulnerable to rebellion and impotent. One of these institutions is atheism. The people must find their strength within the state, not inside a cathedral. The state is the substitute for God and the state can come take your life or grant life just like God. Religious void is part of the very definition of communism and it?s true today as well that communist countries strongly defend themselves against religions. People need to have religion, so, cleverly, today, some communist governments have granted the people their version of a religion ?a state religion. In these countries, the people are allowed to only practice state sponsored religion and are commonly killed for practicing another. Examples that come to mind are China?s persecution of Christians (though, according to this article, China amended its constitution in 1982 to allow Chinese citizens a great deal of freedom of religion, yet it?s still very tightly controlled and there are five ?official? religions the government will recognize including Protestantism and Catholicism ?though Catholics are not to answer to the Holy See of Rome) and it?s well documented that under Castro, in 1962, the Cuban government shut down over 400 Catholic schools and outlawed religion. In 1991, Castro lifted his fist off the church a bit and a year later the constitution was amended to declare the state as secular instead of atheist. Cuba continues to tightly control what the church prints, access to the media, and how many priests it trains, but at least the state isn?t killing any worshippers over there (anymore?). Source and more information can be found in this link. -I can?t help but be concerned about Marxism because Marxism led to the rise of Lenin whose cruelty and animosity toward the people paved the way for the rise of Stalin. I?m not going to go into a long diatribe on the history of these two murderers other than to say that under communism from the Bulshevic Revolution in 1917 to the supposed fall of communism in 1987, and their iron-fisted rule, it?s estimated nearly 62,000,000 Russians were murdered in cold blood. Under the communist regime of Chairman Mao Zedong of China, 76,702,000 people were murdered as well and to separate these events from Communism and, Atheism in particular, would be to ignore the very underlying mechanism of these atrocities. (I should be clear here: I?m only talking about the atrocities of Communist governments but as a side note, it should be clarified that governments in general have murdered as many as over three hundred million unarmed (disarmed) defenseless citizens since 1900. In every case these mass killings were by an armed force against a disarmed force.) I take exception of your use of the word ?sophistry? in your bullet here. The definition of sophistry is ?Oxford American Dictionaries Clearly you?re insinuating that somehow there is malicious intent on one side of the debate, thus detracting from the health of a debate and attacking an individual?s character instead. Can we stick with the facts instead of lowering ourselves to personal insults please? This is the second instance of this type of attack from you in just one post. As to the matter at hand regarding Stalin and his motivations, when you allow pro-government religion, you?re doing nothing to further freedom to practice religion and instead you?re simply putting makeup and high heels on the monstrous religion of communism and selling it as some kind of concession to the people. I?m sure Stalin was a real nice guy and really meant well. I bet the devil made him kill all those people? really. I?ll pass the torch on to others who may wish to take exception with your comments. One last time: A debate is an informed, rational discussion of matters at hand, not personal insults, attacks, flames, etc.

I like the idea of panels that can be easily assembled and taken down for winter. I'm hearing a request for corn now too, but that means many more plants... and higher fence. Is corn worth the trouble? It is getting more and more expensive... I'll have to draw something out on paper and see what it'd take to accomplish it all. I'll detail my results when I've finished the enclosure. It'll probably look like a dog kennel when I'm through with it. Thanks for the ideas...

According to this article, Intel is ramping up their final foray into the world of 45nm processors with the pending release of the Penryn and Nehalem processors due to be completely ramped up by early in 2008. The initial offerings will affect laptops with the dual-core chips and desktop with dual core and, later, quad core. The workstation and server markets will be served later with processors that may be as large as 16 cores. That sounds like one expensive (to buy and to run) computer right there... Good thing Apple jumped on board with them. One more thing: The OSX 10.4.x OS is already set to use multi-threading as a feature to take advantage of as many processors as you can stuff in that enclosure. Today, you can buy a Mac Workstation or server with as many as 8 cores! I believe the U of Virginia or some such institution has a room full of servers all hooked together via Fiber GB Ethernet to form one giant computer with hundreds of processors. OSX works just fine with that arrangement too. Update: April 4, 2007. Apple released the 8-core (Dual quad-core) Xeon "Clovertown" Intel powered Mac Pro workstation PC. If you were waiting for a reason to buy the most powerful desktop computer by a magnitude available to the common consumer today, this is it. It should be at the top for about a year until Intel releases the Nehalem series.

I hope the ramifications of this are apparent to all: Without the bees, there is no food. I'm completely serious about this. Birds do a small amount of pollinating but bees pollinate more than 90% of crops and without the crops pollinated, there will be no veggies or fruit. There are several theories, as the article said, as to why they're disappearing including pesticides and I'll have to look in to it further and add to this post later. My main message here is this is quite possibly the most important news story of the year or even the decade... This well-researched report for your educational perusal may help in your understanding of the situation.

Well it's possible, Mike, that you're suffering the mental side effects of taking meds for your cold. Many meds actually cloud our cognitive thought processes and it may take a week or two for you to recover from the side effects. To help speed up your recovery, try taking a high dose regimen of vitamin C with rose hips and eat lots of raw foods like fruit and tomatoes. Always cook broccoli, it's not good for you raw. Eat lots of greens and eliminate your sugar intake as much as possible; sugar causes the body's defenses to drop allowing bacteria and viruses to more easily take hold. Continue to drink lots of fluids and drink herbal or real tea once or twice a day. Tea is an excellent tonic. With a little honey... Mmmmmm...

Try this on for size. Gross as it may sound, we're thinking of planting the melons in their own location down the hill from the garden over the leach field. Melons just take up too much room in the garden. With the deer, though, I'd need to put up a fence that could withstand a 50MPH wind gust and go down no more than 15" or whatever the standard depth is for the PVC piping in a leach field. How would I go about (sorry -aboot) constructing such a thing and what materials would I need? The space shouldn't need to be more than about a 12-15 foot square. Thanks!

When you live on rough acreage on a sloping hill, it's better if you have some way to mow down the brush and weeds so it doesn't look like a weed forest or some kind of perverted jungle and looks somewhat civilized. Furthermore you really cut down on the mosquitoes by cutting down their habitat. One handy tool I'm going to buy coming up pretty soon is an ATV to aid in my quest to do more forest management and to use as a snowplow in the winter. I've chosen the Arctic Cat Diesel 700 because it's, well, diesel. I've visited the idea of buying a 42" rough cut mower (1.5" to 5" height adjustment) to drag behind it but I'm unsure about the stability and maneuverability on the hills and such. It's priced, retail, at $1800.00 USD. The other option I've been looking at is at http://www.drpower.com/power-equipment/field-brush-mowers/ and costs $3313.30. I'm afraid I'm stretching my luck money-wise a bit thinking of buying both in the same year. But I'm committed not to shovel all that snow again by hand next year or go trampling through the woods with the chainsaw in tow wearing heavy clothing in the summer; I'm getting too old for that! I'm also sick of facing the lawn from hell every year without a good solution. What other options are out there? Keep in mind I'm on 20 acres on a hillside that's about a 250ft. vertical rise from bottom to top. Our yard for lawn mowing purposes is about two acres and very hilly and full of fun things like stumps and rocks.

Wow. I didn't realize I'd need to post an "acceptance of resolution" in this to stop all the flaming or mis-guided posting that followed Electric Ink's good advice. While it would be nice to have a more serious outlet for discussions on Beethoven's 5th or Handel's Messiah, I can see where OpaQue is coming from at least in part of his post. I think a more even-keeled solution could be had by simply stating the expectations at the outset like each of the other topics has, but whatever...Thank you for your quick and useful guidance, Electric Ink and thanks for the support Misanthrope. I'll use your advice if I'm ever not too put out to complete my post, meanwhile, others can look here at a solution if they run into the same situation.

I voted "no" in the poll. You're saying I need to wake up?! If you see no reason [moral] people would consider homosexuality wrong, maybe you haven't opened and read the appropriate passages in the manuals for most religions on this planet. Perhaps you never heard of Darwin or know anything about reproduction and reproductive health. Maybe sexual deviancy is perfectly normal and acceptable to you in the context of the depraved orgy you were conceived in and/or were raised in. Perhaps you think that "right" and "wrong" are merely theoretical concepts reserved for philosophers of old who are antiquated anachronisms in this "enlightened" age. Or perhaps you would be more comfortable if everyone thought as you do, that way we wouldn't be having this uncomfortable discussion regarding "morals" and no one would have to "wake up". Trouble with today's society (western, specifically) is that the lines that separate right from wrong have become blurred to the point of a fog and if you've got no reference then all you can do is make decisions based upon what you see the media promote. For example, after watching half a season of "24" (An American weekly series based upon a fictional Federal agency, Counter-Terrorism Unit, CTU, and one agent in particular, Jack Bauer, who almost single handedly hunts down terrorists and conspirators and who never has a bowel movement or need to eat or sleep. Each episode takes place during one hour of a 24 hour day that makes up the season.), you might think Federal Agents should all be expected to act like Jack Bauer and go around interrogating people using the "water torture" (also used on "Prison Break") method (among others) and kicking down doors without a warrant. I know the ends justify the means and since Jack always has the most selfless motives, that must mean all agents in real life (and their bosses) have nothing but the best intentions. Right? Now, at least, you will know how to act and what to expect when the government agents (Storm Troopers) come kicking in your door because you've been desensitized. No worries about the freedoms Americans are guaranteed thanks to the founding fathers who thought better of assuming they'd always be considered "God-given" and decided to amend the constitution with. They were just dirty old white male land owners anyway. We've been told to hate those of their ilk. Am I going too fast here? My allegation is that just because the media, which is owned by four super-elite and magnificently wealthy families who ultimately make these directional decisions (but whose own households are run in an extremely conservative manner, they may not even let their kids watch television!), tells us through story and by selecting how to slant or "spin" the news by any number of ways including taking things out of context, exaggerating numbers in a crowd or protest (think "Million Man March") or creating context to fit in their agenda, etc., the way to dress, the way to act, who it's "cool" to sleep with, who not to, when or if it's ever right to get married, how to raise your kids... I could go on most of the day but you'll just have to get the point sooner or later. There is no ambiguity between what is morally right and what is morally wrong. There's only confusion due to the lack of a religious upbringing to provide y'all with a solid moral compass or foundation with which to build your lives upon. Without this guiding light, this moral obelisk on the horizon to always tell you where right is and where wrong is, you'll continue to remain surrounded by the fog of uncertainty and confusion. Sooner or later you'll make a wrong choice that'll cost you your life and possibly the life or lives of others. You'll be easily manipulated by your superiors (who do know the difference and choose evil) to carry out their dirty deeds and you'll do it with a clean conscience. And later, after Bubba has his way with you in the confines of your new home in prison, (or when you're making your acquaintance with Saddam in the painful existence he calls home: Hell) you'll continue to swear all the while that what you did was for the good of humanity.

Yeah, and in some parts of the world, dogs are served up in burgers. What's your point? Cat's are very in tune with their human companions and they're extremely healthy to have around, unless you happen to be alergic like I am, even then I'd prefer a cat to a demanding dog any day. Read this interesting article on the healing properties of a cats purr. It might bring to you some respect for the feline...

Welcome aboard, Lathe. Hope you stick around a while!

They're the same. Don't you see? They use "religion" as an excuse for their actions and to motivate the hypnotized masses, but GW and Co. and the Bin Laden family and their ilk... They're all the same: They all worship DEATH. Look at all those lovely trees... Now look at the forest. It's all one. (See the forest through the trees)

Something tells me you and the others above your post haven't actually looked at those videos that are linked in the original post. Please don't even comment until after you've viewed those videos with an open mind. OK? I don't know any rational people that will assimilate the facts presented in those videos and who'll still say that 9/11 and 7/7 were terrorist acts. Yes. There are people in the world who hate us. That's beside the point. LOOK AT THE DAMN VIDEOS!!! The governments you all so blindly trust are lying to you!!!

Several times in history, according to the following linked BBC article, whales have been hunted to the very brink of extinction. Recently, according to that article, a species of dolphin has been counted at 25 or so individuals. I don't even know if this small a population has enough genetic diversity to recover the species. I read at another web site in doing a little research on this topic that the Japanese don't even really like dolphin meat that much, that their insistence to continue their alleged "whale research" that involves killing many of the animals is more due to pride or stubbornness then actual need, either real or perceived. It's way past time the whole world spoke with one voice to these murderers: "It's no longer acceptable for you or anyone to kill cetaceans for any reason!" Anyone who continues this practice should face the court on a first degree murder rap. It can very easily be argued that, but for their continued naiveté , these amazing creatures are far superior to humans in intelligence and more than make up for their lack of digits or tools in their cognitive abilities. If we could just figure out their many diverse languages, I think they could teach us much about our world and each other. They're recognized as sentient beings (short quote from link follows) who "name" their children just as humans and some other animals do. When we begin to see that all sentient beings should be afforded the same universal rights that we've seen fit to bestow upon ourselves we'll find ourselves a notch higher on the spiritual evolutionary ladder. At the end of the day, some of us consider this to be the ultimate meaning of life. Tears I shed for no man, but I weep an eternity to the sea.

Ok, this is really bugging me. I wrote up this really long informative post regarding "The Best Rock Bands" in the Entertainment forum which has no points. At first, I didn't mind, but as it dragged on (what can I say? I've got a music degree and can go on for a while about the subject!) the post became quite heavy and would've probably generated several days hosting credit by itself. I'm most of the way through, but haven't finished it, and I probably won't because there's no way I'm giving that one away when people come in here and talk about the "hottest girl ever" or some brainless garbage like that and actually get credit for it! Why is it worth credit to talk about who you think should be the next Miss Ohio or whatever and a short discourse on the history of rock and roll in England and the U.S. isn't considered credit-worthy?

There's always going to be a trade-off. For instance, the MacBook Pro notebook I own is only an inch think. Apple seems to think the weight and thickness is important, so the trade-off is that the DVD/CD drive was slower to catch up with other offerings because they had to wait for a model that would fit. Further, the only GPU offered in this computer is the ATI Radeon X1600 with 256 MB VRAM. This isn't the best graphics chip out there for laptops, but it doesn't pretend to be a "gamers laptop" either. It weighs in at roughly 6.9 lbs, if you want the gamers laptop, you'll probably need one that weighs upwards of 14lbs if I'm not mistaken. The software that comes with this machine, btw, helps, considerably, to justify the price difference, and if you go to Dell's website and build an XPS M2010 computer, then go to the Apple Store and build a comparably equipped iMac, you'll see that you can load the iMac up quite a bit more and still save money with the Apple. Try it and see. Notice, too, that you can't order the dell with the C2D running at 2.33 Mhz, only 2.0. There are some other differences too, especially in the graphics card comparisons. On the iMac I just configured at the Apple Store, I pretty much loaded it up including a 24 inch wide screen, 2GB of memory, and the 750GB HD with the 256VRAM NVIDIA 7600 GT GPU and iWorks (word processing and "Keynote" presentation software) pre-installed for under $3200 (a student discount will save you an additional 10%). I almost forgot to mention, I also included the 3 year warranty in that price. The XPS with a 20.1" display and MS Works pre-installed is going to run a lot more; probably over a thousand in difference! One last thing I think every smart consumer should look at before buying anything is Consumer Reports. They're a highly ethical not-for-profit ratings organization. They rate everything from breakfast cereal to cars and they've certainly spent a great deal of time rating computers. Guess who consistently has the superior customer service and support? Apple, that's who. Apple always consistently rates the highest in customer satisfaction and loyalty, cost and frequency of repair, you name it, all categories. Don't believe me, I'm biased! Go look it up yourself! In order to run Wondoz on a modern Mac with an Intel motherboard, all you need is a copy of Windoz and a free copy of bootcamp from Apple. This will give you dual-boot capability. There is no longer any emulation required! The stability of the Unix-based OS is one of the many things that makes this machine so highly desirable to own and use. The OS is developed in an open-source environment too which makes the whole thing "just work".

So I just got my VOIP router in the mail today and I immediately tried a couple calls on it. We've got Wildblue satellite internet, 1.0M download, 200K upload. I tested out the upload speed today and it came back with 237kbps at toast.net, so the bandwidth is there, but the far end couldn't hear half of what I was saying. I heard pretty much everything from the far end, so that worked all right. I'm going to call the company, voip.com tomorrow and see if they have any suggestions on how to tweek it, but I'm not holding out much hope. I fear it's going back from whence it came. Anyone else have any experience with VOIP?

I was just commenting to a neighbor today about how spring time is such a revitalizing time of the year. Our garlic is already four inches out of the dirt and many green onion "volunteers" have begun to grow. In just a few days I'll probably be firing up the tiller to go through the upper level to prepare for potatoes and I'm going to plant some watermelons this year to see how that works out too. It's an exciting time of the year fursure.

I've got a MacBook Pro 17" with Core2Duo running at 2.33 Mhz and I used to leave it on over night, never letting it sleep. Then I noticed my electric bill had literally doubled! Now I close the lid at night and it sleeps when I do. I was very surprised at how much electricity this thing uses... For the work it's doing though, when it was left to its own devices at night (SETI@home), it's probably pretty efficient, but I just can't afford that kind of electric bill right now. I still never turn it off, I put it to sleep, which is very close. All it takes is a very tiny amount of electricity to keep the RAM powered up to maintain the memory and to wake it takes about a second, so no waiting for it to reboot.