We need visual confirmation Heaven.
crownboy
JoinedPosts by crownboy
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30
Watchtower - Thongs, how will they affect your JC?
by Elsewhere inmy little protest on how elders treat women in jc's (see the flock book regarding thongs) .
(sorry, changed the post from one that was about michael jackson to this one.... i thought that the mj one was a bit too mean) .
edited by - elsewhere on 4 february 2003 22:18:30.
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41
What exactly ARE the JWs known for?
by detective ini was reading a thread in which jh said:.
people knew we were jw's just by the way we dressed, but also by the way we talked.. .
now, not to come down on jh by any means, but this raised a question in my mind.
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crownboy
Or maybe he didn't have the correct "sense stress" or "modulation", JH.
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58
Watch your language boy/girl
by JH inwhen we were in the org, we had to watch our language, and speak correctly and never swear.
people knew we were jw's just by the way we dressed, but also by the way we talked.
do you still talk in the same polite way as before?edited by - jh on 4 february 2003 19:29:28.
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crownboy
I think swearing is nucking futs .
Actually, I do have a natural propensity for letting an obsenity or two slip out, but usually not for others to hear. I try to keep my conversation speech clean, but if someone is saying something stupid, if it's a friend I'll them their speaking "bullsh*t", or just plain "sh*t". I never considered "damn" a curse, but I say "gosh darn it" even though I think it's a little cheesy. But if I stump my toe, or otherwise inflict some unintentional bodily harm on my person, all bets are off.
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41
What exactly ARE the JWs known for?
by detective ini was reading a thread in which jh said:.
people knew we were jw's just by the way we dressed, but also by the way we talked.. .
now, not to come down on jh by any means, but this raised a question in my mind.
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crownboy
would you say you are a JW if you passed an interview???
Actually, JH, during a service meeting part an elder in my congregation once mentioned that a young brother used to put down the fact that he was a member of the Theocratic Ministry School on his job resumes. Obviously, potential employers would ask what that meant, and then he would be able to "witness" to them, as well as try to convince them that the training he gained from that school is as good a training as one could get in public speaking. The elder never mentioned whether or not the brother got a job by doing this.
From my experience, people thought of Witnesses as:
1. The people who bother them by coming to their doors preaching.
2. The people who don't celebrate holidays.
3. The people who don't take blood transfusions (unless it's fractions, of course ).
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crownboy
This is very sad.
I saw it when I woke up this morning, it's still almost unbelieveable. I hope the grieving families will be OK, and that the space program can figure out what went wrong, and hopefully a catastrophe like this will not happen again.
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crownboy
I know a couple of (able-bodied) sisters in my congregation who fall under that category. For folks who claim to be seperate from the world, they sure have no hang ups when it comes to using the services that the world has when it is convienient for them.
IIRC, there is a topic in the "Reasoning From the Scriptures" book that addresses the fact that JW's don't do anything to give back to the community in charitable ways. Besides the BS about them being a service by doing the preaching work and not commiting crimes, they also said that by paying taxes JW's helped in the up keep of the community by helping to pay for government services, etc. I guess the welfare folks (who could work) can't even claim that much.
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83
Legalize ALL Drugs. Yes or No?
by SpannerintheWorks ini thought it would be interesting to get a cross-sectional view of your opinions on whether all drugs (lsd, heroin, cocaine, etc.
be legalized so that they then became freely available to the general population, in the same way that alcohol and tobacco are .
spanner
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crownboy
How about a drug store, shera?
I say legalize pot and decriminalize (but not legalize) the others.
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142
The State of the Union
by Marvin Shilmer ini am an american, and so is my president.
this is an iron no speech can hold.
it can only be experienced.
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crownboy
Well, I usually get a chance to listen to the SOTU address, but due to a late class last night, I didn't catch it. Maybe there will be a replay on C-SPAN later (I turned on to C-SPAN earler today looking for it, and low and behold, the members of our US Congress were taking up time giving speeches, while passing a resolution congratulating the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It's bad enough that these guys weren't tending to more pertinent stuff, but it would have been nice if they had actually read their speeches before time and didn't include factual football errors. But I digress. ).
As far as Dubya on national defense, if he can actually produce tangible evidence to support a WMD program in Iraq, then get the bastard Saddam. Untill then, saying inane stuff like "the inability to find WMD is proof in itself that Iraq has them" won't cut it for me. I never liked Saddam, and Reagan should not have dealt with him earlier (had Reagan been a Democrat, you ditto heads would no doubt have brought this point up many times), and certainly shouldn't have given him chemicals to help wipe out his Kurdish enemies (not quite the "he gassed his own people" mantra, but obviously bad nontheless).
If Bush were really serious about national defense, he would immediately cease American dealings with Saudi Arabia untill credible assurances were given that they would stop supporting terrorist organizations that among many things, are in existence to adversely affect America. 15 of the 19 terrorists who were involved in the 9/11 attacks were Saudi's (none were Iraqi), and it's a well known fact that the Saudi's talk through both sides of their mouth (diplomatically, i mean ). I'm a little disappointed that so few people on the right care about this issue, and instead I tend to see an intellectual hero worship of all things George W. Bush, and virtually no criticism of him on even these important points. Instead of focusing so much on a guy who may have WMD and probably wouldn't use them against the US if he had them anyway, I'd say our main focus should be on a country we know is hurting us right now by their $2billion a year support of terrorism, mainly funded by money we give them for oil; lets focus on the Saudis. But of course, the oil interest of our country will preclude any such thing. Someone mentioned that Dubya will help fund research on alternative fuel. Well, I hope this is true, but I'll be skeptical on that untill I see real results in that area.
Now as far as taxes are concerned, the rich pay a fair percentage of the tax burden. Now, if the argument is that there is too much taxation, period, then I agree. The highest tax bracket shouldn't exceed about 30%, maybe even less, if the government didn't wastefully spend a great deal of money. However, if the top 50% control 95% of the wealth, then hell yeah they should pay the fair percentage of any taxes. I don't hate the rich (hell, I'm working hard towards becoming a member of that group ), but calling the mostly hard working lower income people lazy is uncalled for. Take it out on the government, not on the people who deservedly pay next to no taxes . Also, poorer people pay a disproportionally higher percentage of their income in "payroll taxes" than do the rich(social security taxes are only applicable to your first $89,000 worth of earned income, IIRC). Payroll taxes accounted for about $0.7 trillion of the total amount of taxes collected in 2001, while federal taxes accounted for about $1 trillion.
For total taxes and expenditures (that we know of ) in FY 2001 see:
http://www.house.gov/nicksmith/annualreport.pdf
Interesting report on income distribution, etc.:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/oss/oss2/98/bull0100.pdf
And wealth concentration:
www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so11/stratification/income&wealth.htm
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Global warming can be good
by crownboy inmaybe if you are a shipper:.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030128/sc_nm/environment_arctic_dc_1.
science - reutersshrinking arctic ice to open new trade routetue jan 28,11:48 am etadd science - reuters to my yahoo!.
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crownboy
Maybe if you are a shipper:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030128/sc_nm/environment_arctic_dc_1
Science - Reuters Shrinking Arctic Ice to Open New Trade Route Tue Jan 28,11:48 AM ET Add Science - Reuters to My Yahoo! By Alister Doyle
KIRKENES, Norway (Reuters) - The shrinking Arctic icecap may open a fabled passage for ships between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans within a decade, transforming an icy graveyard into a short-cut trade route.
New and Improved Health Section!
Check headlines for: Weight Loss, Parenting, Medications and more...Ship owners may be among the few to benefit from global warming ( news - web sites ) in the extreme north, where the giant thaw is threatening traditional habitats for indigenous peoples and wildlife ranging from polar bears to caribou.
U.N. studies project that the Arctic may be free of ice in summertime by 2080. The polar passage, clogged by ice throughout seafaring history, may come to challenge the Panama and Suez canals.
"In the next 10 years I believe we will solve the problems of round-the-year goods transport through the Northern Sea Route," said Alexander Medvedev, general director of Russia's Murmansk Shipping Company.
"You can save at least 10-15 days on the voyage from Japan to Europe, especially in summertime," he told Reuters during a visit to Kirkenes on the Arctic tip of Norway.
The company now runs two or three ice-breaker-led voyages a year from Europe to Japan and back, hugging the Russian coast, and reckons the route can be opened year-round if Moscow makes big new investments.
On the other side of the Arctic, the Northwest Passage past Alaska and through a maze of islands off Canada is likely to take longer to be ice-free because it is further north. It also passes through straits that get blocked more easily by ice.
"For the Northwest Passage it will take another 20 years after conditions for the Northern Sea Route are favorable," said Peter Wadhams, professor of Ocean Physics at Cambridge University in England. "I'm sure it's going to happen -- the ice is retreating."
INSURERS WARY
Yet insurance companies are likely to stay wary of both polar routes. High premiums, a need for ice-resistant hulls for ships and ice-breaker escorts may well wipe out the advantages of lower costs due to the shorter distance.
Mariners searched in vain for centuries for a short-cut from Europe to the Far East -- Columbus ran into North America in 1492 when he sailed west from Europe hoping to reach Japan.
The search for passages cost the lives of explorers including Dutchman Wilhelm Barents and Englishman Henry Hudson -- after whom the Barents Sea and Hudson Bay are named. Barents' ship ran aground in 1596 and Hudson died after a 1611 mutiny.
Other explorers were victims of cold or scurvy before a Finnish-Swedish expedition navigated the Northern Sea Route in 1878. The Norwegian Roald Amundsen was first to get through the Northwest Passage in 1906.
Even as the ice shrinks, it may take billions of dollars to open sea routes. Ports in northern Russia have deteriorated since the end of the Cold War when nuclear powered ice-breakers led warships between the Atlantic and Pacific.
"The obstacles are more economic and political -- you have to have a lot of infrastructure: navigational aids ( news - web sites), search and rescue teams, the ability to clean up pollution," Wadhams said.
And environmentalists want safeguards to protect indigenous peoples in some of the world's largest wildernesses and to prevent a get-rich-quick rush for resources ranging from oil and gas to timber and minerals.
"Melting of the ice will make access far easier to northern Siberia and other wildernesses," said Svein Tveitdal, managing director of the U.N. Environment Programme's polar center.
"There has to be a strategy for sustainable development of the Arctic. It mustn't become a sort of new Africa, where colonialists exploited the resources." About four million people live around the Arctic.
U.N. studies show that the Arctic ice has shrunk by about three percent a decade since the 1970s and that air temperatures have risen by about five Celsius in the past century.
The exploration of oil and gas fields will increase the risk of pollution such as the Exxon Valdez tanker spill off Alaska in 1989. Norway plans to open its first gas field in the Barents Sea in 2006.
The polar regions are most vulnerable to global warming, caused by burning fossil fuels like oil. Scientists say the emissions are blanketing the planet and pushing up temperatures.
In the Arctic, melting ice and snow exposes darker soil and rocks that trap heat. The sun's heat bounces back into space more readily at the equator than near the poles, where low slanting rays have to pass through thicker layers of atmosphere.
ICE RECEDES
New polar routes will save about 4,000 nautical miles on some routes from Europe to the Far East compared to southerly routes through Panama or Suez. Shipments could include cargoes like grains, frozen fish, oil and gas or cars.
And a route north of Canada, for instance, might save 6,000-8,000 nautical miles for a super tanker from Venezuela to Japan. Vessels too big to pass through the Panama Canal have to go round all of South America.
Japan has also expressed interest in transporting nuclear waste to Europe through the Arctic, a plan denounced by environmentalists who say it could get trapped in ice.
Rob Huebert, associate director for the Center for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary in Canada, said one odd spin-off of global warming is that some regions are getting colder, complicating any shipping plans.
"In some areas the ice is getting thicker as it breaks up elsewhere," he said.
Willy Oestreng, a Norwegian professor of international affairs who led a global study of the Northern Sea Route in the 1990s, said Russia was ahead of Canada because of factors including more ports, albeit dilapidated, and ice-breakers.
"The differences are striking. The Northern Sea Route is more developed," he said. He noted that nickel had been shipped from northwest Russia year-round since the 1970s.
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How Do You Feel About President Bush?
by minimus ini like him, but he makes me a little nervous.
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crownboy
Reborn2002, would you have been disappointed had Bush been the one at the short end of the stick in the electoral college squeeze? Somehow, I suspect your indignation is more centered on the fact that Gore lost. I'm sure you'd love the "obsolete system" had Gore come out the winner . And no, I'm not a frothing at the mouth Republican, hell, I'm not even a Republican . (Now, the U.S. Supreme Court deciding the election was another issue. Of course, the Florida Supreme Court also got it wrong, but two wrongs don't make a right. Justices Souter and Breyer were the only 2 clear thinkers, IMO.)
If I had actually voted in the last election, I would have voted for Ralph Nader since I'm from New York and Gore won the state easily. But if I were in a "swing state", I'd have voted for Gore. For all the folks that said the Democrats and Republicans are the same, get real. Do you really think crap legislation like the Patriot Act would have been proposed by Albert Gore? Do you think we'd be embarking on a superfluous war under the Democrats (well, that would depend, I guess) ? Hell, I don't even agree with much of Nader's platform, but his main point about cleaning up the corporate influence in government is a very valid issue that neither party will ever probably really address.
As far as Bush goes, he has his strong points and plenty of things I disagree with. I think what he wants to do with education is laudible. Holding schools to a high standard is good, and if the (mostly Democrat run) urban schools can't get their act together, then parents should have choices. Sure, the separation of church and state line gets a little too blurry for my liking (and Bush probably wants religious vouchers as some kind of repayment to his supporters), but if in the end this improves the education of the children, then so be it. Whatever the public schools are and have been doing obviously isn't working, so maybe a little "competition" for funds will make them get serious. There are other issues I agree with him on, but as I mentioned earlier, I disagree with his war on Iraq (though I was OK with Afghanistan), and his whole presuppositionalist argument about Iraq having WMD. If asked about a Chinese WMD program, we could probably get a straight answer on some facts, but with Iraq, all I seem to be hearing is a "trust us on this". If actual real evidence is provided, and not just "they could make weapons at the backs of vans" nonsense, then I'd probably change my mind.
So, in spite of any goodwill I might have for Dubya, I'd never vote for him as president. Any president would capably handle a real threat to national security, but most would do better than rob us of civil liberties, give more money to the rich and disregard the environment.
