HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: leor@ocf.berkeley.edu (Leor Jacobi)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Off Thoughts. Sheep!?
Date: 27 Dec 1992 08:26:26 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: planecrash.berkeley.edu

In article <1992Dec26.202500.1@acad3.alaska.edu> nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu writes:
>Well land and such.. 
>
>Well maybe get the land the same way my fthers and their father got the land by
>homesteading and then going and risking life to win it. Probably the same way
>most of your family once did. Maybe by some conquest. Main question is why must
>the FED own land? A governemtn that has financial independence from its people

Why should the FED own land?
Because if there's one thing our recent environmental history has shown its
that the only thing worse than government ownership of land is private
ownership!

Some pieces of land are worth too much to break up and hand out to
homesteaders.  The whole can be much more than the sum of parts.

>has no fealty to its members(people)..  Best way to keep a government in check
>it to provide counter ballances to its power.. Be they states (individual
>states) or be it people willing to look into and ferret out information and to
>not let the government get away with things that they are not legally allowed
>to.. One of the founding priniplas of this nation was freedom for a man (or
>women) to find his fortune and to persue it, and to have that right to persue
>it in knowing that he is equal in that search to others.. equal right to aspire
>and equal right to fall..(or folly).. 

...ah, yes, but not a right to wreak folly on their fellow person, fellow
creatures, and only planet.

>
>But we are finding that the FED is forgetting who they serve. The people and
>their individual states..
>
>Well I just want for others to have the right to find their fortune with as
>little interferance by busy bodies who have their fortune or little niche and
>who think that others should be like them. Who think that all who live
>elsewhere than east coast or big cities are crazy.. Well I like my life here in
>a small town on the edge of the world. But we have collected alot of baggage in
>the US.. Pledge of Alliegence, US Flag above all other states flags. There once
>was a day when there was no pledge, when all who lived here were taken as being
>patriotic and not nationalistic.. When Social Security was a choice and not
>forcesd on us.. 

That last paragraph is simply beautiful.
It's prose like this that makes USENET so worthwhile.

>
>Well we shall see how it all works out in the end..

...hopefully

>
>Michael Adams
>Alias: Morgoth/Ghost Wheel 
>nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu
--
Leor Jacobi              ,__o |"Feather-pecking and cannibalism easily become
leor@ocf.berkeley.edu  _-\_<, | serious vices among birds kept under intensive
		      (*)/'(*)| conditions.  They mean lower productivity and
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-| lost profits."   --  The Farming Express
From: "Michael Smith" <p00004@psilink.com>
Subject: Sheep *not* in organizations
Organization: Performance Systems Int'l
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 21:33:10 GMT
X-Mailer: PSILink-DOS (3.3)

>DATE:   Mon, 28 Dec 1992 16:51:01 GMT
>FROM:   Dean Alaska <dean@vexcel.com>
>  Both
>Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin believed that private property was the
>creation of the state [....]

And of course they were right. What never ceases to amaze me is the 
number of posters in this group -- intelligent people, presumably, and 
well-educated by North American standards -- who continue to hold an 
uncritical, ahistorical, transcendental notion of "property" and use it 
as a shibboleth in policy discussions. 

Not only is "property" the creation of politics, but the notion has, of 
course, evolved through history. At one time, you could have property 
rights in another person. These cherished rights were, of course, 
brutally abrogated by an unfeeling Gummint some years ago in the US; a 
blatant example of "taking" without compensation.

Unless history really is over, and the suburban Sunbelt is the highest 
destiny of humankind, we can expect the concept of property rights to 
be further limited as new social goods are defined and appreciated. 
Sounds like progress to me.

--Michael Smith
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: jgacker@news.gsfc.nasa.gov (James G. Acker)
Subject: Re: Alliance for a Paving Moratorium (Alert)
Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 14:51:08 GMT

Loren I. Petrich (lip@s1.gov) wrote:
: 	I personally would prefer to try to make cars unnecessary for
: a large proportion of urban traveling, and to set up alternatives that
: are as clean, safe, fast, convenient, punctual, and jam-free as
: possible.

: 	This is what I'd like to see:
: 
: 	Comparing traveling between San Francisco and Oakland by BART
: and by car across the Bay Bridge. Which is more pleasant and less of a
: hassle? Since Clinton & Co. live in Washington, DC, now, one might
: think of some Washington Metro example for them.
: 
: 	I must concede that a lot of public-transit systems have a
: host of unpleasant features. It is rare to find a city bus that has a
: pleasant ride, for example. Too many of them seem like some
: car-company conspiracy to make the alternatives seem utterly
: unpalatable.
: 
: /Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster
: /lip@s1.gov

	The Washington Metro system is a clean, efficient, relatively
comfortable way of getting from the suburbs to the city, and if I worked
in the city I wouldn't hesitate to use it, despite increased cost.  The
problem is that it doesn't link the suburbs to other suburbs well, and
with 3 separate jurisdictions (Va, Md, and D.C.), getting cooperation
is tough.  There has been a lot of monetary squabbling about who pays
to finish the Metro.
	The worst example is a place I used to live, the planned
(with environmentally-sound housing) community of Reston, Va.  The
nearest Metro station is 12 (+/- 2) miles from Reston.  Going to
a downtown convention once, I tried the bus-to-Metro-to-D.C. route.
Took 1.5 hours one-way.  Just driving to the parking lot and taking
Metro saved me half an hour.
	Oh yeah -- I lived two miles from work in Reston, and rode
my bike!  Those were the days...

	Jim Acker
	jgacker@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov
From: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Development policies
Date: 28 Dec 1992 18:45:54 GMT
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
Distribution: world
Reply-To: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol1.gps.caltech.edu

In article <1992Dec21.224026.28946@vexcel.com>, dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>By "giving to those who cannot [produce]", I assume you are referring
>to corrupt inefficient people.  These people are the minority in such
>countries and collectivist policies are usually designed to help
>the majority.

Sure, they're "designed" to help the majority.  How many succeed in doing that?
The road to hell....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: CARL@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL

Disclaimer:  Hey, I understand VAXen and VMS.  That's what I get paid for.  My
understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below).  So
unless what I'm saying is directly related to VAX/VMS, don't hold me or my
organization responsible for it.  If it IS related to VAX/VMS, you can try to
hold me responsible for it, but my organization had nothing to do with it.
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: mjvande@pbhye.PacBell.COM (Mike Vandeman)
Subject: Re: Save the Planet and the Economy at the Same time!
Reply-To: mjvande@PacBell.COM (Mike Vandeman)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 00:59:50 GMT

In article <78156@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM- mwilson@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM (Mark Wilson) writes:
-In <1992Dec21.041755.4485@pbhye.PacBell.COM- mjvande@pbhye.PacBell.COM (Mike Vandeman) writes:
-
-[Much drivel about how the world would be better off if only we could get
-someone else to pay, deleted.]
-
--                                   Michael J. Vandeman, Ph.D.
-
-Mike, you are a perfect example of how earning an advanced degree does not
-stop somebody from being a perfect and absolute idiot.
 
I guess you couldn't think of anything to say on the subject being
discussed?
From: gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Save the Planet and the Economy at the Same time!
Distribution: world
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 04:24:57 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <JMC.92Dec30011457@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:

 > 2. The unstated premise is that it makes sense to plan for the world
 > as a whole disregarding the effects of national sovereignty.  When
 > national sovereignty is taken into account, we see that some countries
 > have population problems, but others don't.  There is no political
 > mechanism in sight that can merge Australia and China.  [The Confucians
 > lost China's chance at Australia during the Ming dynasty when they
 > isolated the country.]

Indeed, the present understanding between our two countries is quite
explicitly stated as, "It is better to get along with one's neighbours
than distant relatives". We acknowledge that we can co-exist without
developing significant relationships with one another.

It *does* need to be taken into account what relationships exist in
the world. If a particular country and/or its allies arrive at a view
that nothing anyone in the US wants to do or say is relevant to them,
the Greens can talk their heads off into eternity without making one
iota of difference.

I have adopted the local sovereignty model benefitting from its own
ability to shop around anywhere for resources or expertise for good
reason; global "solutions" have already been tried and consistently
failed. The so-called Green Platform, I am sorry to say, has already
expired, and it is well past time everyone finally discarded all this
pretentious "First World - Third World" wank and simply acknowledged
whichever country and its own real situation we are referring to from
time to time.

The Aboriginal people here have pursued that same local integration
model in microcosm successfully since the last cultural shift about
5,000 years ago, and the Chinese Confucian system based on kinship
informing both local and provincial administration has been in place
for a not dissimilar period. The Chinese anthropologists are in fact
currently hypothesising a link between the two events, BTW, suggesting
that Taoism, Hinduism and Aboriginal Law are all related via the same
cultural origins.

The former two streams, however, became subject to external influences
and so changed to meet such contingencies, while the latter had remained
isolated and intact until the Europeans arrived *despite* being fully
aware of their neighbours. I do suggest it is no mere whim that the
Chinese later deliberately isolated themselves, or that they now seek
to be our neighbours rather than being related in any way.

The Australian Aboriginal people want their land, language and culture
restored to them too, and to keep us interfering whites at arms length.

Gil

Newsgroups: sci.environment,ca.environment,ba.transportation
From: jlwilson@bellahs.com (JAMES L WILSON RD)
Subject: Re: Save the Planet and the Economy at the Same time!
Organization: Bell Atlantic Healthcare Systems
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 19:07:06 GMT


Great ideas, all of them.  But they are still just band aid solutions
to the real dilemma:  too many people putting too great a stress on a
planet with a finite amount of resources.  When we can come up with a
real solution for curbing the current population growth we will ease
the increasing strain on our fragile environment as well as alleviate
many other ills facing society today (e.g. crime, poverty, education).  
This seems to be too big an issue for any country, let alone politician, 
to handle but one which will sooner or later need to be dealt with.

Jim Wilson

Xref: sparky sci.environment:13815 ca.politics:10485
From: andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,ca.politics
Subject: Re: Save the Planet and the Economy at the Same time!
Date: 23 Dec 92 01:02:25 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Department,  Stanford University.

In article <1992Dec22.033700.28258@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
>In article <1992Dec22.004733.3897@megatek.com> cjp@megatek.com (Chris "Systems Stud" Pikus) writes:
>>mjvande@pbhye.PacBell.COM (Mike Vandeman) writes:
>:  The
>: answer is to apply appropriate taxes to the ownership, fuelling,
>: and operation of automobiles and other motor vehicles,
>: approximately in proportion to the damage they do.

Interestingly enough, they do.

>>	You overlooked the fact that transportation is an integral
>>part of our economy. Just about every good and service produced in
>>the US requires some sort of transport to deliver it to the consumer;
>>railroads and horse-drawn carts will not suffice. The ripple effect
>>[trickle-down -- yes] of passing these taxes on to the consumer will
>>shrink our economy down to a point sized singularity.
>
>	Tax money does not disappear into a black hole, right-wing
>economists to the contrary.
>
>	Instead, it gets returned to the economy in the form of
>various government expenditures. Whether these expenditures are
>productive ones or not is another question entirely.

It is a relevant question, and given the experience, it isn't
unreasonable to go with a "tax money is just pissed away" assumption.

>	I myself am not opposed to cars; I just want alternatives to
>them to be abundant and readily available. I also want to see it
>possible to have a minimum dependence on the car. I don't own a car,
>and I don't like being made into a second-class citizen by a bunch of
>carheads.

In other words, Petrich wants the rest of us to pay for our choices
AND his choices.  Some "second-class" citizen.

-andy
--
Xref: sparky sci.environment:14198 sci.energy:6575
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.energy
Subject: Re: Nuclear Power and Climate Change
Date: 1 Jan 93 19:19:14 GMT
Followup-To: sci.environment
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <1992Dec31.165855.22315@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>In article <p2qrxnc@dixie.com> jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond) writes:
>nor will it drastically change operational costs.  There is no
>experience with 50 year old reactors.  I have read that the issue
>of embrittlement is not well understood.  If John De Armond
>thinks these figures are junk he better take his arguments to his
>friends in the nuclear industry.

The facts are that there are proposed methods for reversing embittlement
but they have not been tried except in the Soviet Union and, I believe,
one small experimental reactor in Belgium. The costs of these proposed
methods are large, their effectiveness is not known. The NRC shut down
Yankee Rowe precisely because its containment vessel showed signs of
losing enough ductility to make its continued operation dangerous. The
utility chose to decomission rather than to attempt annealing. The
rapidity of ductility loss is the subject of controversy. 



-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu

Xref: sparky sci.environment:13759 talk.environment:5177
From: 471-1@air.atmo.arizona.edu (E. Shane Jimerfield)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,talk.environment
Subject: Re: Why do they hate us?
Date: 21 Dec 92 22:57:40 GMT
Organization: University of Arizona, Tucson

In article <b7PS02gG2ft901@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> jjh00@diag.amdahl.com writes:
>>  471-1@air.atmo.arizona.edu (E. Shane Jimerfield) writes:
>>>>2. Will nuclear energy bring harm to another person or animal?
>>>>
>>> This question has been answered many times... Three Mile Island,
>
>
>   carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick) writes:
>>
>> Who was hurt at three mile island?
>
>No one.  The reactor accident at Three Mile Island cannot be shown
>to have harmed any person in any way whatsoever.  Fact.
>
>---
>Joel Hanes

You are right. I admitt error. However, I still have a problem with the
large build up of waste. Until there is a working solution to this
problem we should consider an alternative, and I don't mean the burning of
fossil fuels.

I also made reference to Chernobyl and was then asked to keep my
references to the U.S. on the grounds of:
"The reason for limiting the search to the U.S., or any other Western Country,
is not underhanded.  Chernobyl was due more to the failing of an incompetent
and illegitimate system than the failure of Nuclear Power.  The (now defunct)
U.S.S.R. was rife with similar examples of irresponsibilit and the system
succumbed, inevitably, to its failings".

What do you think about this?

-- 
Take 'er easy.... Shane
.watch out for the lightning (a large-scale high-tension natural electric
discharge in the atmosphere)......!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
..informal... a sudden usually improbable stroke of fortune.......
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: jgacker@news.gsfc.nasa.gov (James G. Acker)
Subject: Re: Save the Planet and the Economy at the Same time!
Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 15:20:06 GMT

Mike Vandeman (mjvande@pbhye.PacBell.COM) wrote:
:                                    December 20, 1992
: 
: President Bill Clinton
: Vice President Al Gore
: Transition Office
: 1120 Vermont Avenue, 11th Floor
: Washington, D.C. 20270
: 
: Re: A Simple Way to Save the Economy, and the Planet, Too!
: 
: Gentlemen:
: 
:      Believe it or not, there is a simple way to save our economy,
: restore social equity, and save the planet, with one act!
: 
:      The answer is simple. We already know that the automobile and
: its relatives and accoutrements (e.g. roads, CFC-containing air
: conditioners, used tires, etc.) constitute the world's greatest
: threat to our environment and quality of life. We also know that
: the rich own and operate motor vehicles more than the poor. 

[remainder of Mike's letter deleted]

	Mike,

	In the discussion of the gas tax, it was noted that it's
not an equitable tax because the poor- and middle-class are more
constrained to use their cars than the upper class.   Whereas your
position is well-reasoned and reducing our reliance on the car is
a useful goal, I think that your statement that the "rich" own and
operate motor vehicles more than the poor is in error.  The super-
wealthy don't even need to commute!

	It is currently cheaper (in most urban areas) to commute
via car than to use other means, and furthermore, most areas are
underdeveloped with regard to mass transit.  Suburb-to-suburb mass
transit is woefully undeveloped, and due to the growth of the
suburban business district and the decay of the central city business
core (read "Edge City"), suburb-to-suburb commuting is at least on
the same level as suburb-to-core.  Until this inequities are addressed,
simple taxing of car usage will only further add to the burden on the
poor- and middle-classes.

	Now, if you want to enlist help in making plans to address
those issues, put me in the letter too!

	Jim Acker
	jgacker@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov

	Simple answers require complex understanding.
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Sheep in Organizations
Date: 1 Jan 93 19:24:29 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <725866969snx@tillage.DIALix.oz.au> gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick) writes:
>
>In article <58022@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor
>yodaiken) writes:
>
> >Sigh. We already own the land. You want to change the ownership, put up
> >some money. It's really sickening how many people want to get something
> >for nothing.
>
>Sorry Victor, but "WE" do not "OWN" anything at all. Neither the State
>nor the collectivity (despite Rousseau) is a *person* in its own right,

Where is it written that only individuals may "own"?  In the current
US legal system, the Federal government "owns" national park lands in 
the name of the general public. If you have some ideological committment
to a theory of property in which "own" means something else,  replace
"own" with "holds title under current law" if that makes you feel better.


-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu

Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: andrewt@watson.ibm.com (Andrew Taylor)
Subject: Re: Population growth and cultural destruction (Re: Nasty
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 01:09:43 GMT
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

In article <725190219snx@tillage.DIALix.oz.au> gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick) writes:
>I might as well add here most trees and woody plants here in Australia which
>will not even open their seed pods until after a bushfire has burnt through.

Only a small fraction of Australian trees/woody plants require fires to
release seeds.

Why do you post tirades insisting graduate qualifications should be required
to post to sci.environment but yourself post articles containing basic errors
and misinformation?

This piece is my favourite so far:

In article <724399427snx@tillage.DIALix.oz.au> gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick) writes:
>While I am at it, perhaps you might take a good hard look at the
>policies now in place in such countries as Zimbabwe and other East
>African states (I think it is called the Campfire Program, if someone
>would like to check) which have knocked down all the fences around
>the national parks and let the villagers back onto their land on the
>condition that the well being of the local environment and its stocks
>of wildlife underwrite the economic prosperity of the village.

>Of course it works very well indeed, since the program merely serves
>to reconstitute traditional management practices which had resulted
>in such an abundance and diversity of wildlife long before the stupid
>bloody Europeans arrived with their domestic stock and their colonial
>administration responsive only the religious morality of Europe.

Zimbabwe is in Southern Africa not East Africa.  Domestic stock arrived
not with Europeans, but with Bantu pastoralists over 1,000 years ago.
The Campfire Program involves communal lands, not National Parks (and from
memory large parts of the NPs are unfenced).  The program does not reconstitute
traditional management practices. It is at best a limited success.

Andrew Taylor
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: pollution from woodburning fireplace
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 30 Dec 92 06:11:25

Not just any wood for David Hinz's stove - old growth hardwood no less.

Split atoms, not wood.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: mvp@netcom.com (Mike Van Pelt)
Subject: Re: Nuclear Power and Climate Change
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 01:12:17 GMT

In article <1992Dec31.164918.22167@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>I woudln't want to be in Bangladesh when a typhoon carries off a
>containment structure.

And anti-nukes wonder why the rest of us giggle at them...

-- 
Mike Van Pelt          | What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth?
mvp@netcom.com         | Judging from realistic simulations involving a
                       | sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we
                       | can assume it will be pretty bad. -- Dave Barry
Newsgroups: sci.environment