Open Forum Discussions and Debate

GrannieMo: Sorry it took so long to get back to your question. I tackled Billy's posting and looked at the clock and it was time to make haste to the coffee shop for the morning gathering.
An old chestnut goes, 'To the victors go the spoils'. Along with that goes the right(?) to write the history. According to local lore, Christopher Columbus discovered America. Horse pucky, he made landfall on San Salvador. It took him three shots to actually find the continent. There is strong physical evidence that Nordic adventurers landed and settled on the continent long before Columbus was even born. There is speculation that Chinese explorers came ashore in what is now Peru. The fact that the Portuguese were the first westerners to visit Japan makes the assumption that they visited Austrailia at some point in time, prior to Cook, not unrealistic. The polynesians don't get near enough credit for their navigational skills in settling themselves down on islands spread all across the Pacific ocean. Historical revisionism is not a contemporary concept. It goes back centuries and was practiced by the kings who had the strongest naval force at the time. I've always been amused at the idea that so and so discovered this or that land and had to move the people standing on the beach out of their way so they could explore their discovery. What arrogance.

Rosemary: Hot Dang! The beast is growng wings! Already to page two.

We all have the ability to make a difference it is how we choose to do it. Do we sit from an armchair as we watch horrors unfolding, read from the media of the never-ending atrocities committed by ruthless dictators as they continue to persecute the innocent victims, their own people.. or do we stand and up and choose to fight for the people who have no voice and risk the mudslinging that follows becoming the aggressor ourselves? There is no easy solution in the end the innocents in all of this still suffer at the hands of others, sadly help is usually offered to those countries who are rich in resources, gas, oil etc etc, rich pickings while the people 'on the ground' are left with nothing and expected to run their own countries based on our own beliefs/democracies with little knowledge of the 'bigger picture'. Meanwhile there are plenty of 'unsung heroes' who are working in these countries with no pat on the back or flag flying who give unselfishly to those that need it the most the oppressed..

Andre(With the little dammit over the e. And by the way, how do you do that?):
The following is a Teaching of the Hopi people.
'One day, Coyote goes to visit his friend Porcupine at his lodge. Porcupine builds a fire, pokes his nose with a yucca thorn and collects the blood onto a piece of tree bark from the side of his lodge. He places the bark on the fire and it cooks into a beautiful roast. He hands it to Coyote to eat. Coyote is very impressed and as he leaves, he invites Porcupine to visit him next day. Porcupine goes next morning to his friend. Coyote does just as porcupine did the day before. Except this time the blood burns and turns black into a foul smelling mess. Coyote is angry and confused. Porcupine tells Coyote not to be angry and to understand that each creature has its own gift to give and Porcupine's gift is not that of the Coyote.'
There is great wisdom in these teachings. Knowing what your gift to the people is prevents you from makeing a foul smelling mess of things. Sitting in an armchair during one crisis and getting up to help with another, volunteering to help children learn to read, assisting with a blood drive are ways that the gift can be shared. The crime is in knowing what your gift is and not giving it away. Whether it is to assist an entire nation of oppressed people or a family who has lost their home to storm or fire, a neglected child who is mentored in to realizing their full potential, the one who has the correct gift to give at the correct time and place is the one who can make a difference.

Jeb
this dang beast has more than wings, it has voices.

pleased to see those interested sharing in open discussion.

Jeb
to do that little dammit over the e for andré, I hold down alt key and using my numberpad to the right, I type 130 and bingo there it is andré.

é kewel! So now it is andré as it should be. Thank you rosemary. I'll have to find out how many more little secrets dwell in the heart of my number pad.

I just wanted to add a comment about the political correctness that was spoken about the other day.

I was shocked when I had my friends daughter over one day as I was singing little songs with my kids. One of the songs I sang was 'Baa Baa Black Sheep', for which she quickly corrected me and said at her school they are not allowed to sing that, they sing 'Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep'.

I really do think that PC has gone too far, I have never viewed that song as anything other than a kids nersury rhyme.

Mickey
Don't you just wonder where the rationally minded people disappear to when chuckle headed ideas like that come up? POUNCE Lets do away with the word black. Its a bad word. Three people in East LA have voiced their opposition to the word black. Therefore, let it be resolved that the word black be stricken from the language. When you need a new ink jet for your printer be sure to buy rainbow and not b***k. Book keeping would be much more colorful. 'We're finally operating our business in the rainbow'. 'Those rainbow clouds certainly look threatening'. 'The suspect had rainbow hair, rainbow eyes and was wearing an All Rainbows rugby jersey'. What's the matter little girl? My kitty is lost. What color is your kitty? Rainbow. Rainbow Bart, the most notorious rainbow hearted murderin' train robbin' horse theif the west has ever known.
OK, deep breath....

...and then there was the bubonic plague: the rainbow death

Point of order and a by your leave to our moderator: Although the postings are date and time stamped, I can see no delineation marking the end of one topic and the beginning of another. If someone wishes to make a point about a past thread, such as Mickey did, have a go at it. On the other hand, if a quarum rises up and says 'enough', personally, I'd take the hint and clam up. Or is that an insensative statement towards our bivalve friends?

I quite liked that 'little dammit over the e' expression..

The Great Global Warming Swindle - Who do we believe? Watch this video! (It is over an hour long mind so make a large coffee and maybe a sandwich..
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-45206654748994588 31

Don't forget to take out any spaces. Hope no-one minds if I have changed the thread.

André « There that little dammit is!
I've got the audio of the 'Swindle' playing in the background at the moment. I spent a few minutes reading some of the comments posted below the video. What I saw there is a few people trying to express themselves and failing miserably. Does that failure to succintly convey an idea go hand in hand with the disagreement between the two sides of the issue? Half baked ideas and theories going up against learned discourse is always grounds for an exciting train wreck. One of my favorite quotes: 'A theorist is a person who can draw a straight line from an unwarranted assumption to a forgone conclusion.' The idea of a grand conspiricy is a little thin. Conspiricies require total secrecy and the more people associated with a conspiricy the greater the risk of the secret getting out.

Well, OK, I have to revise some of my thinking after hearing the entire essay. My statement about conspiricy is right out. That's what I get for making an anwarranted assumption isn't it? I should have reserved comment until I heard the whole thing. By the way, the website can be opened on a seperate tab and left to play while going back to your original tab if you have the current Internet Explorer version. The audio continues.

Oh jeb what have I started?? Have been reading through the counter arguments regarding the duping of Carl Wunsch although he hasn't altered his comments.. more later there is alot to go through..

You have fallen into the rabbit hole, andré, and possibly taken to us tea with the mad hatter. See rabett.blogspot.com, ref. Carl Wunsch. I am more attuned to the PGA and LPGA on a daily basis. The same thing is happening there. The tour pros are becomming harder and harder to interview for the very same reason. Some irresponsible reporters are so anxious to splash printer's ink and create a story where none exists. They take on an advisarial position and try to catch the players out with a misstatement, that many of the pros have just quite giving interviews.
On to the subject: What little I know about 'global warming', the fact that neither side has all the answers, causes me to take a wait and see attitude. Granted there is more pollutants now than ever before, but also, the weather patterns are in a constant state of flux and have always been so. For that matter, another volcano could erupt next week and create another cooling cycle like has happened in the past. Its all a crap shoot. You bets your money and you takes your chances. I am leery of anyone who stands up and says they have the answer. The earth's dynamics are too many and in constant change for anyone to understand the total big picture. That's my opinion....so far.

I am a little on the fence on global warming. I can see both sides of the discussion.
The world weather and the environment are always in a cycle, floods, droughts, higher temps, ice age, volcanoes erupting, earthquakes moving the whole crust about.
But we are pouring more and more pollutants into the atmosphere all the time also.
I am more in favour of the cycles happening but we should always be environmentally aware and responsible.

How do we know what is the ususal cycle of weather on our planet. Our records in Australia only go back 100 years or there abouts (mostly in Qld only about since the early 1900s). Brisbane was inundated in 1974 by floodwater. Most of the city was under meters of water as were many of the suburbs.
I have been told that core samples taken in Moreton Bay after the floods showed silt deposits from that flood as say 10cm (unsure of the exact figure). Those same samples showed a previous flood which deposited about 100 times that silt.
Is global warming the cause of all our weather problems? or just an excuse?
Like you all I am environmentally aware and believe we should do all in our power to reduce the pollutants in our air. I'm just not 100% sure that it is the full reason for our changing climate. I suppose only time will tell.

'Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody ever does anything about it.' when Mark Twain said that,perhaps he was ref to the Global warming! instead of analyzing the cause and source that has brought the present condition,we shall move ahead with simple solutions to,if not stop the process,atleast slowdown the same,i feel..and procrastination isnt an option,whatever we want to do,we must start doing it rightnow to save the atmosphere..the CO2 that has been released so far will remain up there for not lesst han a 100 years..no exagerration..
fuel efiiciency vehicles is a must and need of the hr..better mileage vehicles not only reduces global warming(for it reduces the emission of heat trapping CO2) but also will save you thousands of dollars at the pump over the life of the vehicle...Then the power,use power saving gadgets for power saved is equvilent to power generated..and nations must go for generation of power using renewable energy source...
and afforestation plus protecting the threatened forests will help reduce the Green house effect in a vast manner...

and regarding the 'pc'..i was given a lot of advice abt the usage of the term'black'b4 leaving for US for the first time...when asked how shall i mention a black coffee,was told,coffee w/o cream or whitener,must be used instead of 'black coffee'!(bloody i got an irish coffee in the confusion,thats a different story!)

Just met up with friends that have returned from NZ - visited a glacier, I asked how degraded it had become and they said it was advancing! So who knows what the hell is happening...

jeb think it may have been a 'rainbow' hole, as for the pot of gold.. h'mm. Having read various articles and listened objectively to some of the arguments my whole way of thinking is that 'a conclusion is simply the place where you get tired of thinking.' However it does bring the matter to the fore and bring the focus onto issues which are relevant to the safekeeping of 'our world' for future generations.

ap:
I wonder what you would have gotten had you asked for your coffee 'rainbow'? Wait staff always ask how you want you coffee and at least around here, it is either black, w/cream, w/sugar or w/cream and sugar. And then the whole thing starts all over agian when you have to decide on regular or de-caf. The Boston area has its own tradition on how coffee is served as does NY. When you get to the West (Left) Coast, you are entering into a twilight zone. If you ask for coffee there, they start on a list 'As lang's me arm': 47 verieties of latté, 18 different ways to create mocha and who know what else. I have asked for a cup of black coffee and had to describe what I wanted. Try doing what I do to help them understand what a plain old cup of java is. I describe cowboy coffee to them. Boil two or three handsfull of coffee in a billy pot of creek water 'till it will float a horse shoe. Swing it over your head by the bail a few times to settle the grunds, pour it into a tin cup and enjoy it while watching the sun rise over the mountain tops. They get this peculiar look on their face as they try to imagine the entire scene. They look almost hypnotized. At that instant, turn on your heels and find the nearest old diner and order a cuppa joe. You'll get a great cup of coffee in one of those thick white mugs as it should be served.

André
ap mentions more efficient automobiles. My youngest son has owned a Honda hybrid now for around three years. He gets between 50 and 60 MPG and it has never needed extraordinary service. Why haven't the big three in the US jumped on the bandwagon with this? The technology is here, the price of gas is not at its highest, yet, and what surprises me is that you don't see more of these cars on the street. People can now drive and cut their gas usage in half but they don't. They just complain about how much gas costs and the police run around trying to catch drive-offs. Our car gets a little over 30 mpg and the F150 (lousy milage) is only used for short errands and hauling stuff, but the notion of burning even less fuel is taking root.

Sounds like shipboard coffee, none better. But don't forget to drop a few fresh egg shells into the pot...not enough room in the galley to swing the pot around your head. The egg shells add something vague (but good), and they trap the grounds so the last cup isn't mud.

Ian:
That navy coffee was good. When in a shipyard and we needed something done that wasn't necessarily on the work order, the mess cooks whould hand over a paper sack with about two pounds of coffee. We'd take that along to whatever shop we need help from and those yard birds would bend over backwards for us in exchange for that coffee. There were bags and bags all taped up and ready to go for whoever needed a little 'bird seed' to grease the skids.

My knowledge of hybrid cars is not too good but here in the UK the budget which was set yesterday has included reductions for car taxes on 'greener' cars. We have a banding system for cars (we pay road tax on an annual basis per car, do you do something similiar?). Band A is the greenest where people can expect to pay nothing for road tax, Band B is for smaller cars and hybrids who will pay £35 but combined these account for only around 1% of the road users the road tax will double on 'gas guzzlers' 4x4's, sports cars and the like (highest banding group G) so they will pay around £400 a year. Our fuel tax is also rising but a discount will be used for green biofuels. The problem is that biofuels are not readily available and the hybrid cars are quite small so for the larger family, farmer etc options are quite limited. Our government is now offering incentives to install solar panels and wind turbines with an option to sell back power to the National Grid and have muted an option to issue financial penalities if house owners do not make their properties energy efficient.

I like my coffee black, my small expresso pot (I have a slightly larger one for one cup won't do moments) sits on the cooker constantly boiling.. Illy coffee wonderful, it keeps me ticking. Here we have black, white, with cream, skimmed, semi etc etc but there is no problem with any particular word to my knowledge. Eggshells in the coffee Ian I wonder who started that tradition, do the shells contain some kind of aphrodisiac do you think?

andré:
Hiway taxes are included in the price per gallon. i.e $2.559 here in Ks. The extra 9/10th of a cent goes into a fund to maintain the infrastructure, theoretically. Federal tax allows a one time deduction for the purchase of a new hybrid. I'm not sure exactly how much but its either $1000.00 or $2000.00. I'm sure someone will step in and straighten that out. This state levies an annual personal property tax on vehicles which includes the vehicle registration (tag). As the car ages, the tax decreases. The tax is based on what can be loosly be called an appraised value. Vehicle registration varies from state to state so I can't speak for any one else. There has been debate over taxing gas guzzlers, but nothing has been done about that yet.

André:
The egg shells absorb the acids out of the coffee, and help settle the grounds.

On a 17-man North Atlantic trawler, at sea for weeks, I certainly hope it was not an aphrodisiac.

Jeb: Never knew about the acids; but the shells (the insides) did a great job of collecting the grounds.

oh my, jeb,i will rethink abt having a cuppa....
here in india coffee means only one variety..thats filter coffee..we south indians make it in a typical way..well the variety of coffee seeds used may be different according to ones taste,but method of making coffee by and large is the same ..

jeb, as I mentioned on these pages a long time ago, I asked for white coffee from an African American in the dining car of an Amtrak train in the US, and he accused me of being racist. I thought he was going to choke me! He was furious (and very big and muscular). I soon learned to ask for coffee with milk.

Susan:
It sounds like you ran into one of those irrational militants who carry that racist crap on their sleeve. Sad to say, they are out there along with the 'white supremicist' and their own agenda. There's something for everyone. There is probably nothing you culd have said to him on any subject that he couldn't find something to whine about. People like that, you just have walk past and leave them to stew in their own insecurities and hatred.

ap:
When hiking in the high country, one has to learn to get along with only what can be carried on one's back for 8 or 10 days. Coffee filters are not one of those things. The neat thing about a billy pot is that it takes up no room in the pack if you stuff it full of little things you have to pack anyway. Boiled coffee is something that you develope a taste for. It has the ability to (40pt type here) WAKE YOU UP after a hard day of up hill hiking and a night's sleep on the hard ground. Even now, a strong cup brings back memories of the smell of woodsmoke by the side of an alpine meadow, clear cold mountain stream water, the sound and smell of the wind in the pines and the sun rising over the mountain tops.

Susan:
...insecurities and hatred. Read that as ignorance.

jeb, how did you do that? I can smell that woodsmoke and coffee from here!

Billy:
Then you must be a member of that small society who can disappear into the woods and see, hear and smell what is actually there as opposed to what popular culture thinks is there. Those aromas, sights and sounds are always around us but most of the time they are hidden or distorted by 'civilization'. It takes experienced senses to pick them out from all the chaos surrounding them.