As they say: “We have some good news and some other news.”
In this case the good news was the vest is being reunited with its owner. And for the other news:
This link tells how easy it is for literally anyone to snoop on you, ala ‘1984’.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/a-cheap-spying-tool-with-a-high-creepy-factor/?nl=technology&emc=edit_ct_20130808&_r=0
This next link tells of companies closing their doors rather than being complicit with non-constitutional surveillance techniques.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/08/08/email-company-reportedly-used-by-edward-snowden-shuts-down-rather-than-hand-data-over-to-feds/
And, not to ask anyone to agree, or change their mind, but my position is that strong surveillance is not in itself inherently bad. Closed-circuit TV cameras monitoring public spaces, have solved many crimes and save many lives.
In my mind, the problem is bad people. Whether they are civilians or government. It is not difficult to collect very valuable information that can be used to harm people.
It would be really simple if only wonderful people collected information and watched out and prevented bad people from doing bad things to wonderful people like you and me. When you figure out how to do that please tell us all how to do it.
In the meantime, some of us were laboring under the delusion that we had a Constitution and a few other old, dusty, pieces of paper, that set down carefully thought out rules of what was fair. The recent Snowden scandal, to my mind, points out that those old pieces of paper are being ignored by our government. If you somehow think that every human being in the government, is brilliant, and honest, and has the genuine best interest of America, and Americans clutched to his bosom every minute of every day, then you probably can’t figure out what all the fuss is about.
And here is an article saying that the sun’s magnetic field will reverse soon. Yes, that means what you think it means. The North Pole of the sun, will gradually get very weak and then reappear at the opposite end. WTF?
This is probably important to us in ways that we still don’t comprehend, but it can affect radio communications and how radiation from outer space impacts on planet Earth. It is happened about every 11 years since they noticed it. And presumably every 11 years since the sun was created. So, it’s not likely that you will be aware of it at all unless you have sophisticated instruments. Or, you rely on long-distance radio communications, like radio amateurs.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/08/130807-sun-magnetic-field-reversal-space-weather/
Speaking of radio amateurs, I was surprised to see a radio amateur starring in a movie that I watched a few days ago. The name of the movie is Contact. Made in 1997 with Jodie Foster playing the lead role. She is the amateur radio operator.
See, at least in Hollywood, they are not all like Train Spotters.
A lot of the movie involves the stress that far too many people feel between Religion and Science. Just like in the real world, most of the stress is generated by misquoting things and twisting things for dramatic effect. Actors on both sides repeatedly get their knickers in a knot over things that were not what the other person said, etc. Good Hollywood fun. It actually present some interesting conundrums.
Not to change anyone else’s mind. You obviously have given it a lot of thought and have exactly the answers to everything all figured out. However, I’m still working on the puzzle. I’m not nearly as sure of things as I was at 16. And I will just say that at my present state of ignorance it seems to me that Religion and Science have no reason to be adversaries at all.
But, like most of Life, it depends on how you define Religion and Science. My version of ‘Real Science’ is the search for truth and understanding. It requires an open mind and honesty. It requires looking at data that you don’t think should be that way, yet allowing it to be recorded and studied and not sweeping it under the carpet. Unfortunately, not common Human traits.
Also, in my tiny little mind, Religion is supposed to be the honest study of a lot of very important things, mostly about the nonphysical world. Likewise, it requires an open mind and honesty in looking at the data that perhaps you don’t think should be that way, yet allowing it to be recorded and studied and not sweeping it under the carpet.
Unfortunately, the people practicing Religion OR Science, are people. Human beings. Talk about an imperfect vessel. They have an annoying tendency to burn people at the stake, or as shown in one charming painting at the Vatican Museum, tying them to something or other so they don’t run about, and then splitting open their abdomen and slowly pulling out their intestines and winding them up on a big drum. While the victim watches. I think that’s the ‘drawn’ part of drawn and quartered. The quartered is, after they’ve taken all of your digestive system, they cut you down the middle vertically and across the middle horizontally into 4 roughly equal pieces.
Oh, those Servants of the Lord (similarly the Servants of Science) are so cute.
You see, Scientists are far from lily white either. If you come up with data that the main, entrenched, monopolistic, Scientific Community (in name only) disagrees with, you are at least banned to the hinterlands, and your economic livelihood cut off.
Just one of the countless gruesome examples is Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis. Not exactly a household name in my household. How about yours?
But a very good example of how incredibly stupid the so-called Scientific Community can be. In about 1847 there was no concept of germs. Doctors routinely performed autopsies on people that had died of who knows what. Often, the person had died of horribly contagious conditions.
Then, the same Dr. would walk upstairs to, in this example, deliver a baby. I would assume that they washed their hands for cosmetic purposes on occasion. Of course, who knows what the social norms were in 1847. But, if I were getting ready to have a baby and somebody walked into the room covered in blood and guts and disgusting things. Looking like an extra for a chainsaw massacre movie. I would probably be a little put off.
So, I’m just guessing that the problem was that, “If my hands look clean, they are clean.”
Well, dear Dr. Semmelweis, connected the dots. He began to think that on the days that he washed his hands before delivering a baby very few of the mothers got sick from complications. He got pretty excited about this alleged finding.
Unfortunately, the Medical Mafia, got pretty excited too. But, their excitement was satisfied by putting Dr.Ignaz Semmelweis into the equivalent of Guantánamo prison and letting the guards beat him to death. He died within 14 days of being kidnapped by the establishment.
And he was just asking people to wash their hands. You can see why people like Dr. Burzynski who the Medical Mafia sees as wanting to meddle with trillion dollar industries, trillion dollar monopolies, that won’t be a monopoly if they get meddled with. You can see why Dr. Burzynski gets harassed.
And don’t waste our time with telling me that he routinely cures patients safely, and comparatively inexpensively, and with virtually no side effects. That is NOT the point. He is tampering with someone’s rice bowl.
For more info on Dr.Ignaz Semmelweis, have a look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis
Dave
Alegria1976's Blog 