HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Idiotic Japan Bashing
Distribution: world
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 92 06:45:58 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <1992Dec30.021837.17665@oracle.us.oracle.com> mfriedma@uucp writes:

 > Bullshit.  For example, no matter how good a relationship we have with
 > our educational customers, they are not going to buy our MRP products
 > - they don't manufacture so they don't need MRP.

Let me suggest that they are not going to buy any of your products at
all, because you are just another stupid *gwai lo* barbarian who has no
more courtesy than to yell "bullshit" at anything you fail to understand.

Remind me not to buy anything from this Oracle Corporation either. A
polished salesman you are *not*, pal. In fact, if I were your President
I would fire you right now for the manner in which you abuse and attack
potential customers, no doubt whatsoever.

I would not use your twenty year plan to wipe my arse with, the way
you are carrying on about it.

 > Well, my eldest son is not yet born so I think that kind of premature.
 > Also, I do not intend to plan my childrens' lives for them.  

Perhaps you should. Chinese do, and have since about 400 BC following
the widespread introduction of Confucian ethics as national policy. Let
me assure you, filial piety is the hallmark of the good son.

 > >Effective in the short term, perhaps. But who cares about the short
 > >term when you must work to position your generations to benefit from
 > >the long term?
 >  
 > Great.  So tell us what belongs in a long term plan, Gil, or admit
 > that you're blowing hot air.

I don't have to admit any such thing. Maybe I just shut up and wait a
few years while you make a complete fool of yourself.

I tell you, I never met anyone so hell-bent on destroying a company's
reputation for service and civility as you are, fellow. At least not
since I ran into that Amstrad fucker a few years ago.

 > >How will all your grandchildren, and their children and their children
 > >after them fare long after you are dead and gone? Doesn't that concern
 > >you at all? Don't you leave something for them, that they will honour
 > >you for your longsightedness, generosity and wisdom?
 >  
 > I plan to leave them plenty of money.  They can use it as they see
 > fit.

Oh, you have money! All that wonderful makfeesh faloosh! Sorry, I had
forgotten about that. I hope you don't have it invested for them in one
of those financially sound, reputable S&L societies protected by so
prestigious an institution as the White House, do you? Or perhaps you
have it in IBM?

Maybe you are shifting it across to Intel right now, yes?

Gil
From: louis@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca (Louis Schmittroth)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Idiotic Japan Bashing
Date: 28 Dec 92 20:19:28 GMT

jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:


>I would imagine that Japan's 1938 100 year plan would have been based
>on the use of Manchukuo (their name for Manchuria or Liaoning) and
>probably on further conquests in China and maybe in the Soviet Far
>East.  Not much salvageable from that plan.

Excuse the use of bandwith on sci.environment, but I have a rejoinder:

In 1857, when the competition between Japan and the United States began,
the shogun's adviser, Masayoshi Hotta, observed:

	I am therefore convinced that our policy should be to stake
	everything on the present opportunity, to conclude friendly
	alliances, to send ships to foreign countries everywhere and
	conduct trade, to copy the foreigners where they are at their
	best and so repair our own shortcomings, to foster our national
	strength and complete our armaments, and so gradually subject
	the foreigners to our influence until in the end all the
	countries of the world know the blessings of perfect tranquility
	and our hegemony is acknowledged throughout the world.

This is quoted on page 113 in "Trading Places,"  by Clyde Prestowitz, a
must read for anyone interested in the US -- Japan trade deficit, and
the resulting colonizing of America by the Japanese.  

So you could say that Japan has had at least a 135 year plan.  After
Hirohito came to power in the 1920s, the Imperial Army and Navy became
the chosen instrument of world domination, and the pathway was China.
The proponents of economic dominance lost out, for a while.  What WWII
really taught Japan was that they could not succeed with armaments, as
apparently planned by the shogun's adviser in 1857.  They tried.

When the occupation ended in the early 1950s, and MITI was formed, the
strategy was to use trade to establish the hegemony.  They have almost
succeeded where the Imperial Army and Navy failed.

To sum up my view of Japan vs the US since WWII:

The Japanese have had a national *economic* strategy, but no military
strategy (except to depend on the US to defend them from the USSR and
keep the Gulf open).

The US has had a military strategy but no economic strategy.

Who is becoming an economic colony of whom?
--
Louis Schmittroth louis@cs.athabascau.ca
NW 1/4 18 67 21 W4 Alberta.  
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.energy
From: constant@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Tino)
Subject: Re: Nuclear Power and Climate Change
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 02:43:53 GMT

In article <1992Dec30.211459.28435@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>efficiency has the shortest installation time. This is all
>for the U.S.  The developing world will need new capacity soon (if not
>now).  I would argue that they would be best served by smaller scale
>generation and solar and wind tend to serve them well since they have
>little or no grid, but that is their decision to make.

When developing countries begin to industrialize, their electricity needs
will quickly outgrow what is available with solar and wind technology. 
What then? Large units for baseload power, accented with smaller scale
generation for peak loads, etc.

I couldn't see solar and wind supporting a country of 10-20 million or more,
and I wouldn't want to be in Bangladesh when a typhoon carries off the 
country's entire capacity of solar panels.

BTW, the countries that are growing very rapidly, like Thailand and Korea,
are investing heavily in next-generation nuclear plants. Perhaps the US will
be buying its technology from _them_.

Tino
-- 
     "Here are the young men, the weight on their shoulders..." - J.D.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Purdue University School of Nuclear Engineering
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: intimidation
Distribution: world
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 92 04:16:52 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <389@snll-arpagw.llnl.gov> hwstock@snll-arpagw.llnl.gov writes:

 > Learn to distinguish "anti-environmentalists" from healthy
 > skepticism and a desire for proof. Because someone does not kowtow to
 > all your beliefs, does not mean that person is necessarily against you
 > or out to get you.
 >  
 > For example, I believe in conservation, increased gas taxes, and all
 > reasonable measures to reduce the buildup of combustion products in the
 > atmosphere. At the same time, I believe that the atmospheric models that
 > claim to "prove" global warming are highly suspect; they contain too
 > many tunable parameters and are unable to meet the simplest test of a
 > scientific theory -- they cannot make a testable prediction. General
 > scientific principles make me fear global warming and make me want to
 > take measures to prevent the process, since the expectation (in the
 > sense of probability) is great.

Indeed, and the more balanced input we get from the middle ground,
prepared to weigh the reliability of evidence and the validity of
argument for themselves on particular issues, to probe and question
before coming to any sort of viable strategy for doing anything about
them (if indeed anything *needs* to be done), the better off we all
are . . .

--
Gil Hardwick                          Internet:  gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au
Independent Consulting Ethnologist                  Fidonet:  3:690/660.6
PERTH, Western Australia                         Voice:  (+61 9) 399 2401
   * * Sustainable Community Development & Environmental Education * *
From: bobh@fuji.hwr.arizona.edu (Bob Harrington)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Sheep in Organizations
Date: 30 Dec 92 04:03:34 GMT
Organization: University of Arizona -- Tucson, AZ

In article <1992Dec25.032326.1@acad3.alaska.edu> nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu writes:

[convoluted discussion of land owenership deleted]

>Its interesting to note that
>in most of the mining operations that I know on rivers that the miners most
>times return the water to the river cleaner than it was when they got it..

Cleaner? Please provide details. This claim is fascinating.

>Maybe not as good as the EPA standards, but most of those standards are pure
>bull and made up by some scientist who generally has no knowledge of the rivers
>they are making standards for..  

Do pristine Alaskan rivers usually not meet EPA standards? That seems to be 
the implication of what you are saying.

>Michael Adams alias Ghost Wheel/Morgoth NSMCA@acad3.alaska.edu

Bob Harrington
Hydrology and Water Resources
University of Arizona
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.energy
From: pajerek@telstar.kodak.com (Don Pajerek)
Subject: Re: Idiotic Japan Bashing
Reply-To: pajerek@telstar.kodak.com (Don Pajerek)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corp. - Telstar
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 19:25:18 GMT

In article <JMC.92Dec31105329@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:
>Mike Polen says:
>
>     Japan is a highly nationalistic company.  Corporations and
>     the government work hand in hand.  Unlike the US, you can
>     not draw a distinctions between the two.  If a company or an
>     industry wants the government to support their plans against
>     outsiders, they've got it.
>
>This seems exaggerated to me.  Japanese companies compete with
>each other, sometimes in the face of more intrusive regulation
>than in the U.S.  If the U.S. copies this mythical Japan, we are
>in real trouble.
>--
>John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305


The suggestion that you can't draw distinctions between the government
and private corporations is indeed exaggerated. However, it is a fact
that the Japanese government will provide significant support for
Japanese companies who want to export to foreign markets, especially
if they want to compete with non-Japanese companies. This support takes
two forms: 1) reduced taxes on goods sold abroad, as compared to those
sold in Japan; and 2) protection of the Japanese market against
non-Japanese (would-be) competitors.

There are, of course, exceptions and variations. For example, MITI
did not want Honda to enter the automobile business; they felt, perhaps
rightly, that there were enough Japanese auto companies. Honda moved
ahead anyway, and we know the rest of the story. Curiously, however,
Honda isn't nearly the force in the Japanese auto market that it is
in the U.S. market (Nissan and (especially) Toyota dominate the
Japanese market).


Don Pajerek

Standard disclaimers apply.
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: jgacker@news.gsfc.nasa.gov (James G. Acker)
Subject: Re: NYT article on Japanese breeder
Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 14:18:06 GMT

Louis Schmittroth (louis@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca) wrote:
: jgacker@news.gsfc.nasa.gov (James G. Acker) writes:
: 
: >John McCarthy (jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU) wrote:
: 
: My advice to the Japanese:  start buying Candu reactors from Canada.
: Safe, cheap, proven.   I would like the two of you to tell me why
: they shouldn't.  I think I know why they don't, and it lies deep in
: the psyche of Japan.  
: 
: Response?  And, John, we both favor using the nuclear fission option
: as a *partial* way to avoid the possibly disastrous effect of CO2 build
: up.
: --
: Louis Schmittroth louis@cs.athabascau.ca
: NW 1/4 18 67 21 W4 Alberta.  


	I really don't care what Japan does, but those attempting
to prevent nuclear proliferation (a damn good idea), do.  I posted the
excerpt from the _New Scientist_ article to give another perspective
on the Japanese breeder reactor program.
	And by nuclear proliferation I mean weapons-grade plutonium
capable of being made into bombs.  The Japanese have a lot of good
ideas, including aggressive push on enviro-industry (as mentioned in
the ABC News report I saw) -- it may be that the FBR/Monju is not
one of them.  They didn't hit the mark on the next generation of
computers, either.

	Jim Acker
	jgacker@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Why do they hate us?
Date: 29 Dec 92 12:32:25 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <1ho1o4INNnna@gap.caltech.edu> carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>=	Nice try, but the *design* is irrelevant. NOTHING is idiot-proof.
>=Give an idiot a rubber ball, and they'll find some way to hurt themselves.
>
>Give somebody a reactor with a positive thermal coefficient and NO containment,
>and he can easily blow up the plant and spew radionuclides all over the
>landscape.
>
>Give someone a reactor with a negative thermal coefficient and several levels
>of containment, and even let him do everything in his power to screw things up
>(a more or less valid description of the operators at TMI) and he'll still find
>it quite difficult to do more than damage the reactor.

Do you really have an engineering degree? 

>=Provide all the safeguards you'd ever want on a nuclear reactor, but they'll
>=eventually wear out, rust, be disconnected, wired wrong, and become generally
>=disfunctional. Hell, bury it 5 miles underground if you like... but following
>=good ole Murphy's Law, the meltdown gases will find their way up through the
>=elevator shaft.  Hey, make it even *impossible* to have a meltdown...
>
>Haven't heard about the more recent designs that are PASSIVELY safe, have you?
>You can't make one of them melt down even if you try (they did, as a test of
>the design).

If you do, your instructors neglected their duties. 

-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu
From: GC.GGG@forsythe.stanford.edu (Gwyn Gordon)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: FUNDING ANNOUNCEMENT
Date: 29 Dec 1992 14:49:48 -0800
Organization: Stanford University
NNTP-Posting-Host: morrow.stanford.edu


***FUNDING OPPORTUNITY***

Research Expeditions International is accepting applications for
funding for research projects scheduled for 1994.

Research Expeditions International specializes in Participatory
Research, in which well-educated lay people provide funding and
volunteer as the on-site work force. Studies best suited for
Participatory Research involve data collection or unskilled labor
which is easily taught to one or several groups of adults.
Preference will be given to studies in the following areas: animal
behavior; archaeological excavation; and tourist impact on culture,
economy and ecology. Studies in other fields will certainly be
considered if appropriate.

Applications for the 1994 season are due February 1, 1993.

For informational materials and application, contact:

Gwyn Gordon
gwyn.gordon@forsythe.stanford.edu
415-494-2515
806 Los Robles Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94306
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: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 19:40:03 GMT

Michael Tobis (tobis@skool.ssec.wisc.edu) wrote:
: In article <1992Dec29.001438.984@pbhye.PacBell.COM>, mjvande@pbhye.PacBell.COM writes:

: |> So ask them to deliver it.
: 
: How would that help? Do you really expect a cheap low-frills volume
: distributor to deliver? And if they do, do you expect them to make a separate
: delivery to each customer by bicycle? Or what? Where is the environmental
: advantage in delivery?

	You know, I thought about this for a little while.  I live within
walking distance of a grocery store, but I drive there (about 3/4 mile),
so that I can carry the groceries home in my car.  I could shop
every night and buy less (again, a time inconvenience, but I COULD!), and
walk every day.
	But what if...

	I walked to the store, and bought my 3+ grocery (reusable sacks, BTW)
sacks -- I want to pick my own produce, thank you -- and then took them to
a delivery truck, and walked home?  If a limit was put on the distance
from the store the truck could deliver, and it made one trip to everyone's
home rather than each shopper taking their own car, it would save on
car use!
	Hey, the delivery truck could even be electric, and it would
recharge while waiting for the next load to fill up.   A computer matrix
could indicate the best route (kind of like the traveling salesman
problem -- shortest route that gets to all the points).
	Now THAT'S an idea!  And I'd pay an extra $1-$2 for the service,
too.  (approx. $50-100 for the year).

	Comments are welcomed!  I thought it was a good idea when I
came up with it.

	Jim Acker
	jgacker@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov

Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder)
Subject: Re: What's Necessary?
Organization: Quake Public Access
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 11:26:33 GMT

In article <1h37s6INNfm0@gap.caltech.edu> carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>In article <149180185@hpindda.cup.hp.com>, alanm@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Alan McGowen) writes:
>>Is the Spotted owl species worth 1 (one) job? I think so. Is it worth 1 (one)
>>human life? Probably. 

Whose life?  Your own?  Are you really saying that you would willingly
die just to save the lives of a few owls? (What about the lives of a few
hundred chickens and cattle?)  That question aside, would you really be
willing to put someone to death in order to have some owls?  So, tell me.
Why would such a person not want to blow your head off rather than to
submit to your attack on him?

If you are willing to kill in order to obtain such a trivial goal as the
survival of a few owls, what would you be willing to do for something
which was ACTUALLY valuable?  You folks are really frightening.

At least you think that a single murder is not as bad as a million.
That's where we agree.

On the other hand, you are willing to COMMIT murder.  That's where we differ.

>Is it worth 10 million jobs? Or ten million human lives?

Who elected you God anyway?  Those lives don't belong to you.

>>The answer isn't so clear. If I haven't reached your limit yet kick it up
>>another magnitude or two, a hundred million human lives?

--Brian
Newsgroups: sci.environment,ca.environment,ba.transportation
From: tleylan@pegasus.com (Tom Leylan)
Subject: Re: Idiotic Japan Bashing
Organization: Pegasus,  Honolulu
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 92 07:06:41 GMT

mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:
>
>No Tom.  You go public or you sell it.  It is pointless to go through
>the expense and hassle of going public if you intend to sell the
>company.  

Pardon me, I thought I heard of any number of times where the stock
upon being traded publicly rises and in some cases and recently it
rises to extraordinary levels.  But no matter...

>However, this does not apply to reasonably well established companies.
>Most such companies are already public and do not intend to be
>acquired.

The point was you said "thousands of years" and something like "every
company" and I only claimed you exaggerated.
>
>Why do we need a 200 year history to make a 20 year plan?  Also, it's
>15 years now, not 10. 

Uhhh beats me.  I think a 100 year plan makes more sense if you've
been in business longer than 100 years so I would say your 20 year
plan would have been silly the week after Oracle was started unless
that was the payoff date in which case planning that far would be
sensible because you have to.
.
>>You do not get it... it is clear and I'll stake my money that 100 years
>>after Oracle is dead and buried that Matsushita Corp. is still around.

>How do you plan on collecting?

I don't personally have to collect I can leave it to heirs, you're still
thinking in the sort term.

>Perhaps I might find your argument more convincing if you told me what
>the elements of a 100 year plan should be.
>
>So far you haven't.  Why?  Because once you start listing what should
>be in it the idiocy of such a plan becomes obvious.

I didn't say that Matsushita had a 100 year plan.  Either Robert Reich
(Clinton's economic advisor (or something)) said it on a special he
hosted or researchers on Frontline said when they studied the way that
Japanese businesses operated.  What makes you think that I'm the person
who can make such a plan ?  I'm not claiming any special knowledge I'm
suggesting that you can't understand things that fall outside of your
own realm of business savvy.

You continue to pretend that you're winning the argument because I can't
personally devise a plan that meets your requirements, I continue to
suggest that Matsushita and the people there are doing whatever they are
doing and they don't honestly care what your definition is.

You're smarter than Robert Reich or the Frontline researchers and that's
all there is to it... they were fools and you know everything.

I'm satisfied...

tom
>
Newsgroups: sci.environment