"DonQuijote1954" wrote in message
om...
Max wrote in message
...
I'd really like to hear more about the details specific and germane to
the Miami park problem.

Could you post a mapquest link to the spot in question, or an overhead
image?

Here's the map (I hope it works)...

(I'd come down 18 st, but now I have to walk 3 times farther and
launch at a more dangerous place)

http://www.smartpages.com/cityguides...yType=&Radius=

This isn't some little park lake like I imagined you were describing.
Although I'm not familiar with your put-in point, any boat launch ramp
should be as available to kayaks as any other craft. If you are launching
from a non-ramp site, walk the three blocks or drive to a public ramp and be
done with it. You are so lucky to have this wonderful place to paddle.

In Colorado, we have a great deal of compassion for the homeless who have
hard and shortened lives. Typically, the homeless are struggling with
mental illness and are difficult to help although many try.

Of course, kayaking and the homeless have nothing to do with each other
except to distract the officials from your issue with them. Gratitude is
the antidote for resentment and the map seems to point to a lot to be
grateful for.

Happy Thanksgiving.

--
Sincerely,
Joanne

If it's right for you, then it's right, . . . . . for you!!!

Play - http://www.jobird.com
Pay for Play - http://www.jobird.com/refund.htm
Looking for Love? - http://www.jobird.com/hearts.htm
Garden Kinder CDs
http://www.jobird.com/cd/gardenkinderhome.html

"Joanne" wrote in message nk.net...
This isn't some little park lake like I imagined you were describing.
Although I'm not familiar with your put-in point, any boat launch ramp
should be as available to kayaks as any other craft. If you are launching
from a non-ramp site, walk the three blocks or drive to a public ramp and be
done with it. You are so lucky to have this wonderful place to paddle.

The only park with a canoe ramp is two miles away, but takes a car and
then be limited by the closing hours. Limitations, limitations,
limitations...

And the next best choice is kind of dangerous and difficult.
Surrounding areas are all monopolized by the lions. What's left?

In Colorado, we have a great deal of compassion for the homeless who have
hard and shortened lives. Typically, the homeless are struggling with
mental illness and are difficult to help although many try.

You must have been raised into accepting the homeless as normal but I
have not. I'd like to remind you they are the symptom of a jungle. A
few that have it all (private marines and all), others that are left
behind and discarded like animals (the homeless), and a majority who
got no place in between. It's a jungle out there...

Of course, kayaking and the homeless have nothing to do with each other
except to distract the officials from your issue with them. Gratitude is
the antidote for resentment and the map seems to point to a lot to be
grateful for.

The things I have to be grateful were created by NATURE, but are
quickly disappearing thanks to the relentless attack by motorboats and
the careless dumping, so a few can have fun.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Likewise. Thanks Mother Nature! ;)

Originally posted by Rickk
"The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

Oh no, it's only ice falling!

"oohhhh...dead Jews and Americans!....oohhh...ohhhh...almost
there...ohhh...right there!...that's the spot...deeeeaddd
Jews...ovens....ohhhh-dead Jews! Be-headed Americans! OHHH! OHHH!
YES!!!!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!"

But don't blame all Americans and Jews for it, only a few of them--the
lions so to speak. Actually the Jewish kibbutz present the best hope
to Stupid Unnecessary Vehicles and other stupid things out there...

The Greening of the Kibbutz
Environmentalists hope to restore the kibbutz movement to its former
place on the leading edge of social innovation
by Jan Martin Bang

Imagine a string of villages, settled over the last twenty five years
by young people from all over the world, inspired by the ideals of
building a new society. A cooperative society, not using money,
trusting each other, each village having unique characteristics,
owning all things in common, bringing up their children in a new
educational system, practicing democracy at a grass roots, village
level. In short, building a new type of culture.

Doesn't that sound inspiring? Can such a thing exist? Is this just a
dream? A utopia, no place?

(snip)

The task of the Green Kibbutz Group became quite clear to me, to find
this concern in every kibbutz in the country, and nurture it, helping
it along to make the kibbutz movement once again a leading social
experiment. Where modern consumerism and capitalism armed with the
latest technology are creating a wasteland unfit for human habitation,
we have a task to create a new society, one which will use the
technology available to us, in a spirit of cooperation, to create
communities which will be sustainable and live lightly on the land.

http://www.ru.org/artkibb.html

... you all are going to have to excuse me but I am 55 years old and for as
long as I can remember I have been told by numerous pundits that
civilization especially western civilization is about to go bust and
self-destruct. First it was by all-out nuclear war - I also can remember
being told we would run out of crude oil by 2000 - then it was the coming
ice age - and now we all are going to roast in our own juices with global
warming and the runaway greenhouse effect. Sorry if I sound jaded & cynical
but a ton of money has been and will be made predicting the end of the
world.

Personally I think if we snuff ourselves it will come from the small
microbial end of things. Probably with good & benign intentions somebody
will alter the genes of some lifeform and do irrepairable harm to most
probably the food chain and then we all can kiss our modern civilization
goodbye. Just my 2 cents worth.

The fact that we were saved by a hair (remember the Cuban Missile
Crisis) doesn't mean that the wolf wasn't there. But now we have more
wolves, predictable and unpredictable. The issue at hand is the
predictable one. It's not a matter of "if" but of "when." We are
unwilling and uncapable to change and the problem is passed on to
future generations. The other issue is the unpredictable one. As more
people and governments--not always with the best intentions--lay their
hands on WMDs and more conflicts are provoked, something will happen
sooner or later...

There's a dialog in 'The Matrix' in which one of the humanoids says we
human beings are the only living beings, outside of a virus, to
destroy its own home. Maybe we will meet our own medicine.

DonQuijote1954 ) writes:

There's a dialog in 'The Matrix' in which one of the humanoids says we
human beings are the only living beings, outside of a virus, to
destroy its own home. Maybe we will meet our own medicine.

We are certainly changing the environemnt, but you'll have to define
"destruction". if we humans die out the land and water will still be here
and sombody else will take over. However we humans are not causing any
significant warming of the earth's climate. There are far greater forces
at play such as the cyclical increase in sunspot activity. The sun's
radiation is not a constant but fluxuates over hundreds of years with
shorter cycles of 11 or so years. The data show that radiation has been
increasing in line with the slight rise surface temperature on our planet.
NO doubt they are getting the same effect on Mars where there are no
automobiles or air conditioners.

I mentioned the 11 solar cycle because it has a definte effect on some
animal species. The wild rabbit population is known to rise and fall with
the 11 year solar cycle. I assume any paddlers with an interest in the
conservation will be familiar with that.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network
homepage: www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm
warning: non-FreeNet email must have "notspam" in subject or it's returned

Well, for those who can't read ice melting as a sign of Earth warming,
here's another sign of environmental catastrophe: satellite pictures
of the Amazon. If that is not clear enough...

Satellites show human destruction of Amazon rainforest
By Andrew Hay in Brasilia
November 27, 2004

Getting patchy
About half of Brazil's original Amazon rainforest has been occupied by
man, deforested or used for industry, and its destruction is worse
than government figures show, an environmental group says.

A study using satellite photographs shows that land occupation and
deforestation covers about 47 per cent of the world's largest jungle,
an area bigger than the continental United States, the Brazilian
non-government organisation Imazon said.

The respected group has received funding from a number of sources
including the Ford Foundation and the German and US governments.

While the Government says only 16 per cent of Brazil's Amazon has been
deforested, the Imazon study indicates a much larger area is
threatened or being destroyed by man, said one of the researchers,
Carlos Souza.

"This shows the real pressure on the forest," said Mr Souza, who used
satellite images up to 2002 to produce the study.

Deforestation of the Amazon by ranchers, farmers and loggers hit its
second-highest level last year.

The Government says it is using satellite monitoring, reserves and
better law enforcement to slow destruction of an area that is home to
10 per cent of the world's fresh water and 30 per cent of plant and
animal species.

The centre-left Government is particularly concerned about an "arc of
deforestation" that marks an agricultural and settlement frontier
sweeping from east to west across the lower, southern half of the
Amazon.

Imazon said its survey showed that reserves must be created deep
within the forest, and on the frontier of Brazil's portion of the
Amazon - about two-thirds of the rainforest.

"Vast areas of forest that were previously considered empty
(especially in the north and west areas) show signs of growing human
pressure, especially from forest fires," the Imazon study said.

Environment Ministry officials were not immediately available to
comment on the survey.

About 70 per cent of Brazil's tropical savannah - once the size of the
Amazon - has been deforested to create the world's biggest
grain-growing area, environmental groups say.

The Amazon will go the same way if agriculture, business and
government use it as a resource to fuel economic growth, the
Environment Minister, Marina Silva, said last week as she opened an
environmental police academy.

Reuters

"we live under the foot of the dinosaur"

Originally posted by Cowboy
Where I live - it's a free-market economy; folks don't like being told
what they can or can't buy as if it were a command economy. Go bych to
the auto manufacturers to improve efficiency, cause I sure as hell
won't argue with you in that I'd love to get 40+ mpg instead of the 12
or so I see with my truck. See; you're directing your anti-SUV rant at
the wrong crowd. Consumers will buy what they need or want, but
manufacturers can do better with pressure in the right places.

#1: I drive a truck that has the same engine as a Ford Expedition, so
what's the freakin' difference? Are you going to tell me and all the
other millions of truck owners that we should go out and buy hybrids??
Try hauling a load full of grain in a shyt can Honda. The FORD F-150
is the world's best selling consumer vehicle; trucks get the work done
in my town.

#2: If you live in a city or don't have kids; shyt, a Mini Cooper or
Camry might do you good. That stuff won't work for me where I live and
what I deal with.

Like Montgomery Gentry say: I ain't trading in my family's safety just
to save on a little gas ................ YOU DO YOUR THING, I'll DO
MINE!!!! [fuqing bad-azz song and it's how millions roll].

Like I said - you go voice it to the auto manufacturers and tell them
I want the same truck, but with 40 mpg. You think I like paying $300
per month in gas??? Hell no, but I ain't about to drive no fuqing Jap
car and a Ford Focus or Chevy Cobalt just don't cut it for me.

Cowboy, I don't have a rationing in mind, but the current level of
happy-go-around waste is UNSUSTAINABLE.

But you know what is f*** wrong with the world (aka the jungle)? Not
that you personally drive a truck, particularly if you need it, but
that WASTING GAS IS GLAMORIZED. If you drive an SUV in the city
(hardly a need for it) it signals "hey, I'm the king of the world, and
f*** the world." Another thing is wrong with the world (or should I
say America?) is that YOU DON'T HAVE CHOICES, but to pollute. I got 3
spanking new bicycles in my apartment that go nowhere. Why? Because
it's a jungle out there. And being small gets you in trouble. Not even
in a small car you are safe, let alone in a bicycle, on the chaotic
American roads, where SIZE MATTERS. We need BIKE LANES but that's too
much to ask in the land of super roads.

So sure we can put pressure on Ford Corportation to produce hybrids
and complain all you want, and they should be doing much more by now,
but in the meantime, I'm saying WE LIVE UNDER THE FOOT OF THE
DINOSAUR. And the STUPID HUNGRY DINOSAUR, instead of coming up with
something creative, demands to be fed at whatever cost.:confused:

(hey, you can sign something here);)

Climate Change Petition Online
Sign the online Emissions Petition. Urge America's political leaders
to take...
iw.rtm.com

If the beast were smart, it could notice things like this...;)


Wind industry bids to win over doubters
Friday, November 26, 2004 Posted: 9:30 AM EST (1430 GMT)

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- The European wind energy industry,
thriving as climate change tops the global agenda, says it could
eventually supply all the continent's electricity, but must first
overcome public resistance over eyesore turbines.

The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), which held its annual
meeting in London this week, projected that offshore "wind farms"
covering an area the size of Greece could meet Europe's electricity
needs with no greenhouse gas emissions.

But sceptics cite pollution of another kind with giant wind turbines
scarring the landscape, or blighting the sea horizon, deterring
tourists and killing birds with their whirling vanes.

"The argument is reaching ridiculous proportions. Most people don't
understand climate change and they don't understand wind turbines,"
Alison Hill of the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) told an
international meeting in London.

She said her organization was mounting a major publicity campaign in
newspapers, with billboard posters and a photographic exhibition
extolling what she called the beauty of turbines to inform and win
over people.

"It is a long standing case of Not In My Back Yard. Where people have
knowledge they give support. In this case familiarity breeds content,"
she said.

With the Kyoto treaty on cutting carbon dioxide emissions about to
come into force, signatory governments must seek clean and renewable
sources of energy.

Wind farms are sprouting in fields, on hilltops and out of the seas
around Europe with major projects either under construction or in
planning.

The EWEA says it can hit the target of generating 75 gigawatts (GW) of
electricity -- or 5.5 percent of demand -- by 2010, of which 10 GW
could be offshore.

With initiative and government intervention to remove long term
support for the carbon dioxide emitting fossil fuel power industry,
this could rise to 12 percent by 2020.

"In the longer term, a sea area of 150,000 square kilometers ... could
provide enough power to satisfy all of Europe's electricity demand,"
an EWEA statement said. He gave no timeframe.

But Rowena Langston of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
-- which says global warming must be stopped -- said development was
being pushed ahead with scant reference to the impact on the local
environment and in particular bird life.

"Until there is more robust information, we are not going to overstep
our conservation brief and say a project should go ahead regardless,"
she told the meeting.

But renewabale energy specialist Bryony Worthington of pressure group
Friends of the Earth countered that the climate crisis was now so
grave that birds had to take second place to saving the planet.

"The bottom line is that climate change is happening, endangering us
all. It is extremely scary," she told Reuters.

Originally posted by goth1856
....about the virus anology...ever notice a satell pix of modern
civilization on the face of the earth is just like a colony of virus
on the host? it begged the question are we the virus plague apon the
planet?

Yep. But there's consolation...

What would you like to come back as? King over the British?
After Blair they will believe anything you tell them.

Keep that review of Bush- pushing further and further to greater
failure (madness).

Howdy Bader
That's the fate of the lions: to drag everybody else and themselves
into doom. If there's any consolation is that they'll meet their
justice. They'll be swallowed by the jungle...

Film 'Aguir The Wrath of God'

"The centerpiece of the story is the figure of Aguirre, played with
crazed demonism by Klaus Kinski. He's terrifying in the part -- his
lips contort underneath cold blue eyes that convey a ruthlessness that
slips, not so slowly, into insanity. By placing him and his arrogant
delusions about himself and the environment he finds himself in,
Herzog seems to be criticizing the entirety of Western culture, from
imperialism to Nazism to the American occupation of Vietnam. Aguirre
and those who follow him are ultimately destroyed by their own
delusions of grandeur; in the end, the world they're confronting is
simply too large and complex to be encompassed by their petty plans
and ambitions."

http://reviews.imdb.com/Reviews/120/12030

On 2004-11-27, DonQuijote1954 wrote:
Originally posted by goth1856
...about the virus anology...ever notice a satell pix of modern
civilization on the face of the earth is just like a colony of virus
on the host? it begged the question are we the virus plague apon the
planet?

Luckily we do have a cure for this plague:
http://www.kolumbus.fi/jik/sarastus/penaintr.htm

In Finland we have only 3% of foreign descent, compared to Sweden's
40%, and thus this guy's 50 years of premonitory sermons did have a
covert effect, inspite of being officially comdemned.

Timo Noko wrote in message ...
On 2004-11-27, DonQuijote1954 wrote:
Originally posted by goth1856
...about the virus anology...ever notice a satell pix of modern
civilization on the face of the earth is just like a colony of virus
on the host? it begged the question are we the virus plague apon the
planet?

Luckily we do have a cure for this plague:
http://www.kolumbus.fi/jik/sarastus/penaintr.htm

In Finland we have only 3% of foreign descent, compared to Sweden's
40%, and thus this guy's 50 years of premonitory sermons did have a
covert effect, inspite of being officially comdemned.

Though I'm an immigrant myself, my position on the issue is, we need
to fix our own problems, and then we leave your land. Ironically we
may find that immigrants and racists have something in common,
particularly with a country like Finland which is a country...

Emigration from Finland

Finland has traditionally been a country of emigration. Over one
million finnish people has moved from Finland since 1900, half of that
before World War II. Without any emigration there would be 6-7 million
inhabitants in Finland. The most important wave of emigration started
from the 1860's and went on to the 1930's, when emigrants headed
mainly for North America. The next wave of dimension was the
emigration to Sweden which started in the 1950's and diminished in the
1970's.

Finding relatives in America has become some kind of a hobby for many.
For people living in America, Europe is the major continent where
their ancestors left. Ancestors from Finland can be found, even if the
number of immigrants from Finland was only about 0.5 % of all
immigrants to America. Usually people from the large emigration areas
in Finland tried to settle together in the same areas in the United
States. Most of the emigrants were men.

***

You see, Finland used to be a very backward country, but now is #1. We
have quite a bit to learn from Scandinavia...

Originally posted by Bader
Howdy DonQ:

I have to admit Cowboy got it right. I could have said similar a long
time ago.
People subject to the Law of the Jungle are trying to survive not
trying to protect the Law.
The lion is not govt bureaucracy, thats just as subject to the Law as
Cowboy.
And if you went to the manufacturer they would tell you the same story
as it applies to them.
The universe is full of energy and its free. Thats why we cant have
it, because the Lion wants to sell it. IF the US spent its defence
budget on bike lanes it wouldnt change a thing.

Howdy Bader
It makes sense that the jungle condemns everybody, except that a GOOD
CHUNK OF THAT DEBT IS THE $30,000+ SUV. If there were bike lanes
people could get away with bicicles, which is precisely why the
government does't build them. He wants to be fed in a BIG WAY.

But if the bureaucracy is not the lion, then it's one of his
associates in sharing the scraps. That's why they resist ANY change,
except a raise in salary and benefits...

Originally posted by HAZ
here in N. Florida, we've only had one day in the forties and it's
almost December! Four or five hurricane recently....hello! ice
melting! should be a wake up call to someone! Our recently elected ?
President , thinks it's all junk science!

His home state is getting hammered with unusualy heavy amounts of
rain!

I know, Haz, but they are tied up in the men's thing, which is to make
war. Funny that they didn't raise the possibility of the hurricane
being tied to climate change, just plenty of photo ops for reelection.
I call him Hurricane Bush...

We narrowly escaped several times in South Florida.

This website on Bush's war on the environment is very good...

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.ph...onmental_record

On 2004-11-28, DonQuijote1954 wrote:
Timo Noko wrote in message ...
On 2004-11-27, DonQuijote1954 wrote:
Originally posted by goth1856
...about the virus anology...ever notice a satell pix of modern
civilization on the face of the earth is just like a colony of virus
on the host? it begged the question are we the virus plague apon the
planet?

Luckily we do have a cure for this plague:
http://www.kolumbus.fi/jik/sarastus/penaintr.htm

In Finland we have only 3% of foreign descent, compared to Sweden's
40%, and thus this guy's 50 years of premonitory sermons did have a
covert effect, inspite of being officially comdemned.

Emigration from Finland

Finland has traditionally been a country of emigration. Over one
million finnish people has moved from Finland since 1900, half of that
before World War II. Without any emigration there would be 6-7 million
inhabitants in Finland. The most important wave of emigration started
from the 1860's and went on to the 1930's, when emigrants headed
mainly for North America. The next wave of dimension was the
emigration to Sweden which started in the 1950's and diminished in the
1970's.

Remember that Finland's birth rate has been articially boosted for a
century. Especially during the fascist era there was a huge (20%)
bachelor-tax -- make babies or move out of the country. From 1990
even the officially stated policy of government and busines (=Nokia)
leaders has been that 1/4 of the native finns are genetically of
subhuman quality, not worth jobs, healthcare, housing, higher
education, or even as a breeding stock. Hence we have started to
import better people en mass and soon we'll have nice multicultural
scene like all em other countries..

On 2004-11-28, DonQuijote1954 wrote:
Timo Noko wrote
On 2004-11-27, DonQuijote1954 wrote:
Originally posted by goth1856
...about the virus anology...ever notice a satell pix of modern
civilization on the face of the earth is just like a colony of virus
on the host? it begged the question are we the virus plague apon the
planet?

Luckily we do have a cure for this plague:
http://www.kolumbus.fi/jik/sarastus/penaintr.htm

In Finland we have only 3% of foreign descent, compared to Sweden's
40%, and thus this guy's 50 years of premonitory sermons did have a
covert effect, inspite of being officially comdemned.

Finland has traditionally been a country of emigration. Over one
million finnish people has moved from Finland since 1900, half of that
before World War II. Without any emigration there would be 6-7 million
inhabitants in Finland. The most important wave of emigration started
from the 1860's and went on to the 1930's, when emigrants headed
mainly for North America. The next wave of dimension was the
emigration to Sweden which started in the 1950's and diminished in the
1970's.

Remember that Finland's birth rate has been articially boosted for a
century. Especially during the fascist era there was a huge (20%)
bachelor-tax -- make babies or move out of the country. From 1990
even the officially stated policy of government and busines (=Nokia)
leaders has been that 1/4 of the native finns are genetically of
subhuman quality, not worth jobs, healthcare, housing, higher
education, or even as a breeding stock. Hence we have started to
import better people en mass and soon we'll have nice multicultural
scene like all em other countries..

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most
intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."
-Charles Darwin

(cut)

Let's see ... humans can adapt to live underwater, on land, in arid regions,
in space, etc. Unless humans run out of energy, I suspect that they will
continue to thrive. If humans *do* run out of energy, look for the cock
roaches and ants to fill in the void.

I can see a bright future...for roaches and ants. ;)

Humans though can live on land for quite a while (maybe 100 years) but
more difficult to live under water or up in space (maybe some months
at most).

The scenarios of destruction can be multiple, but it can most likely
descend into chaos and war due to scarcity of resources and/or
environmental catastrophes and/or injustice. We can see what's to come
by learning from the past...

A Recipe for Disaster?

Easter Island is the perfect precedent of what will happen to the
world--if we don't stop it on time. The most valuable resources are
being diverted into EXTRAVAGANT PROJECTS and WARS, while the REAL
ISSUES--environmental damage, injustice, etc--are ignored. The WATER
WELL IS DRYING UP before our very eyes. A recipe for disaster, I'd
say...

'The little spot of land in the middle of endless sea is more-or-less
in the same situation as our lonely little rock in dark cold universe,
and in the ecologically induced class struggle between "Long Ears" and
"Short Ears" we might see reflection of the escalating conflict
between rich and privileged states of the First World and numerically
increasing yet constantly impoverished multitudes of the Third World.'

RAPA NUI (1994)
reviewed by
Dragan Antulov

The plot of this film is based on the legends and historical
speculations about Easter Island in Southeast Pacific, the most remote
part of the world that was ever settled by human beings. Dutch
explorers, upon discovering those islands in 1722, found impressive
statues but the the local population, made of stone-age cannibalistic
savages, seemed incapable of erecting them. The movie tries to give
the explanation for this by setting the story few decades before the
arrival of Europeans. The island is so far away from the other lands
and that the descendants of Polynesian settlers forgot their roots and
believe that they are the only people in the world. Lack of external
conflicts doesn't mean that there aren't tensions within the community
- the society is divided into two classes based on racial features -
aristocratic "Long Ears" and plebeian "Short Ears". The class and
racial tensions has begun to escalate because of the population
explosion; the island is simply too small to provide the needs for the
people. Old and senile king Ariki-mau (played by Eru Potaka-Dewes) is
less concerned with those problems, because he thinks only of erecting
bigger and bigger statues in order to placate gods. His grandson Naro
(played by Jason Scott Lee) has other things on his mind, since he
fell in love in "Short Ear" girl Ramana (played by Sandirine Holt).
Love that crosses class divide happens in worst of all times, since
"Short Ears" like Make (played by Esai Morales) are less and less
enthusiastic about "Long Ears" rule, which slowly but inevitably paves
the way for brutal civil unrest.

RAPA NUI definitely belongs to the same category as multitude of other
films with strong environmental message, which used to be made during
the zenith of Hollywood's "political correctness" in early to mid
1990s. What distinguishes this film from those films is the manor in
which the message is delivered to the audience. Namely, filmmakers
wisely chose to set the plot in a time before arrival of Europeans,
thus sparing the viewers from "politically correct" cliches of evil
European civilisation destroying the nature. RAPA NUI shows that less
advanced native cultures, which are supposed to be more "in tune" with
the nature, can be equally or even more deadly to the environment than
their modern-day equivalents. What is even more remarkable about this
film is the fact that the whole story can be seen as powerful allegory
about the current state of human civilisation as a whole. The little
spot of land in the middle of endless sea is more-or-less in the same
situation as our lonely little rock in dark cold universe, and in the
ecologically induced class struggle between "Long Ears" and "Short
Ears" we might see reflection of the escalating conflict between rich
and privileged states of the First World and numerically increasing
yet constantly impoverished multitudes of the Third World. Unlike
other films that try to shove the Message down our throats by, RAPA
NUI successfully shows how greed, ignorance and unbalanced approach
towards environment can bring down entire civilisation.

Unfortunately, most of the viewers have to digest this message in the
context of plot, characters and situations that sometimes look too
cliched or simplistic, or simply out of place. One of the examples is
the triathlon scene, which looks like it was added into the film only
to provide some testosterone- filled action in otherwise depressive
movie. The writer and director Kevin Reynolds nevertheless manages to
keep things under control, helped by ethnically diverse and very
capable cast. Despite many flaws, RAPA NUI is a film that can leave a
strong impression on any viewers, and after WTC bombings, when the
future of our world seems so uncertain, this impression is definitely
going to be even stronger.

more...

http://webspawner.com/users/donquijote55

Timo Noko wrote in message ...
Remember that Finland's birth rate has been articially boosted for a
century. Especially during the fascist era there was a huge (20%)
bachelor-tax -- make babies or move out of the country. From 1990
even the officially stated policy of government and busines (=Nokia)
leaders has been that 1/4 of the native finns are genetically of
subhuman quality, not worth jobs, healthcare, housing, higher
education, or even as a breeding stock. Hence we have started to
import better people en mass and soon we'll have nice multicultural
scene like all em other countries..

I thought you were anti-immigrant, but I didn't get the point about
inferior Finns. Well, for those who are anti-immigrant, they must
realize we got something in common in fixing the problems of the
Thirld World...

Scandinavia went from being a poor emigrant place to a rich immigrant
place. Sweden studied America in order to learn what to do--and what
not to do--in the 1920's and by the 30's it was already a model.

On 2004-11-28, DonQuijote1954 wrote:
Timo Noko wrote in message ...
Remember that Finland's birth rate has been articially boosted for a
century. Especially during the fascist era there was a huge (20%)
bachelor-tax -- make babies or move out of the country. From 1990
even the officially stated policy of government and busines (=Nokia)
leaders has been that 1/4 of the native finns are genetically of
subhuman quality, not worth jobs, healthcare, housing, higher
education, or even as a breeding stock. Hence we have started to
import better people en mass and soon we'll have nice multicultural
scene like all em other countries..

I thought you were anti-immigrant, but I didn't get the point about
inferior Finns. Well, for those who are anti-immigrant, they must
realize we got something in common in fixing the problems of the
Thirld World...

20% unemployed (defacto) and they say we "urgently" need more people.
According to CEO of Nokia those (unemployed) are of inferior quality
(inspite of high education) and we need to give tax-breaks those
educated foreigners that are willing to move to Finland.

Scandinavia went from being a poor emigrant place to a rich immigran
place. Sweden studied America in order to learn what to do--and what
not to do--in the 1920's and by the 30's it was already a model.

Please. Sweden did not start mass-immigration until 1960. Wages were
3 times higher than in Finland (I was there -- as a summer-timer
immigrant laborer). Downhill ever since, now Sweden is poorer than
Finland with appaling third-world problems.

"Across its range, this magnificent animal is being poisoned,
electrocuted, blown up by land mines, trapped, snared, shot and
captured"

Funds to save the tiger are short; funds for war are plentyful.
Welcome to the land of the human predators... :(

Conservationists call for more funds, commitment to protect tigers

Fri Nov 26, 7:56 PM ET Science - AFP

HANOI (AFP) - A large injection of funds and commitment from the
international community is needed to prevent the world's critically
endangered tiger population from dwindling any further,
conservationists warned.

Out of the eight sub-species of tiger that roamed the earth's jungles
and forests 60 years ago, the Bali tiger, the Caspian tiger and the
Javan tiger are now extinct, while less than 20 South China tigers
remain.

"Across its range, this magnificent animal is being poisoned,
electrocuted, blown up by land mines, trapped, snared, shot and
captured," according to global conservation organization, the WWF.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...s_041127005644

Well, NOT ALL HUMANS ARE PREDATORS. Actually it may only be a minority
who are, so we must isolate them, punish them--and remove them from
power where applicable.

This man wants to save the snail against man-made pollution. Perhaps
this is the kind of people we need in power...;)

At One With the Snails

Sat Oct 30, 7:55 AM ET Top Stories - Los Angeles Times

By P.J. Huffstutter Times Staff Writer

PROTEM, Mo.-- More than 170 feet below the surface, Tom Aley feels his
way through a pitch-black cave, searching for a blind snail no bigger
than a grain of sand.

The air is dank and cold. Aley squeezes his 6-foot-3, 195-pound frame
through a gap in the stone just wider than his thighs. Far ahead, he
can hear the faint sound of water trickling through the cave, which
stretches out for two miles. It's the underground creek that winds
through Tumbling Creek Cave, buried deep in the lush rolling hills of
southwest Missouri.

Along the creek, inside this cave he owns, Aley discovered what has
become his obsession: the snail called Antrobia culveri.

There is nothing else like it-- it is the only species in its genus
and so far, it has been seen only in this cave.

About 15,000 Antrobia culveri once flourished here. Today, fewer than
150 are left: Runoff from overgrazed pastures has washed sediment and
pollution into the creek's once icy clear waters, and is thought to
have killed off nearly all the snails.

Aley's attempts to keep this seemingly insignificant creature alive
destroyed his first marriage, cost him $1.4 million and consumed 38
years of his life. The dwindling snail population exasperates him --he
sees it as a personal failure-- but Aley refuses to stop.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...ewiththesnails

Timo Noko wrote in message ...
I thought you were anti-immigrant, but I didn't get the point about
inferior Finns. Well, for those who are anti-immigrant, they must
realize we got something in common in fixing the problems of the
Thirld World...

20% unemployed (defacto) and they say we "urgently" need more people.
According to CEO of Nokia those (unemployed) are of inferior quality
(inspite of high education) and we need to give tax-breaks those
educated foreigners that are willing to move to Finland.

It sounds to me like Saudi Arabia...

What is good for GM...is bad for the American people, in light for so
many SUVs out there polluting and threatening others on the road.
Perhaps the same for Nokia?

Anyway if you got such unemployment, isn't it time cut down the
workweek?


Scandinavia went from being a poor emigrant place to a rich immigran
place. Sweden studied America in order to learn what to do--and what
not to do--in the 1920's and by the 30's it was already a model.

Please. Sweden did not start mass-immigration until 1960. Wages were
3 times higher than in Finland (I was there -- as a summer-timer
immigrant laborer). Downhill ever since, now Sweden is poorer than
Finland with appaling third-world problems.

Well, the problem in Finland seems to have more to do with
globalization than with immigration. Sweden is another story, which
may prove the failure of socialism with people who don't share the
values (immigrants). I'd chose neither route: neither socialism nor
globalization, but ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY (mostly through competition from
coops), providing more employment with fewer hours and cutting down
welfare. Of course, those policies must be implemented first and
foremost in the countries that feed the immigrants to Scandinavia.

Scandinavia has its own system based on low corruption and high taxes
that may work best for them. At least it can't be called a jungle, and
it's #1 in most world rankings. For one the hordes of homeless, the
crime, the dilapidation you find in America are not found there...

What else is an idiot to believe, that leaders of the world care about
the environment any more than their petty wars? :(

Petty wars? Well maybe the war of Jenkins ear but I don't think that
happens
anymore.

petty: Marked by narrowness of mind, ideas, or views.


So an opposite point of view or ideology is petty? Boy, you'll fit right in
here :-)

Petty wars occur when the real motives of a war are faked, so to hide
the fact that they remain good old-fashioned plundering and pillaging.

'I typed this message espically on a japanese keyboard because quite
frankly it sickened me the other day whilst in my hotel room i turned
on the T.V (thats not the only revelation) but it sicken me to what i
heard and I can say this until the cows come home The 2nd Gulf War is
nothing compared to vietnam and that is what sickened me i may not be
a racist or politican but i am a patriot and i respect my own and my
allies countries and the fact that a "petty war over oil" can be
compared to the sheer horror of vietnam and i want to close by saying
that it is un4exceptable and that this is the kind of slander that
needs to go from our lives not violent films etc.

I just want to display my point of view.'
Fox

Posted by TheFox on 04/28/04 at 02:12 PM

http://www.oddlotsirregulars.com/ind.../comments/658/

Petty wars occur when the real motives of a war are faked, so to hide
the fact that they remain good old-fashioned plundering and pillaging.

Now you're just applying words to a current situation. Booooooooo. No
attention span.

remainder deleted

Actually that's what I had in mind all along. While politicians turn a
blind eye to the environmental crisis, they engage in petty wars over
oil.

This is a picture of our leaders...

http://ce.eng.usf.edu/pharos/wonders...tten/moai.html

suv`s are obviously an unecesary risk to the current population mainly
because of their gratutiously unecessary use of irreplacable resources -
the current doubling of oil prices is directly attributable to their growth
in the USA and Europe -oil demand is forecast to double in the next 20
years but supply will possibly drop by 25 % this problem would disappear if
the use of road fuel in the USA dropped by 15% -banning SUVs or restricting
them to non heated non AC agricultural types would achieve this overnight
and also reduce pedestian deaths by 8 %. All governments world wide must act
immediatley to suppress the yank tank invasion! -DESMODUS

It makes sense to me. But it won't be the governments of the
world--they are either in complicity or simply intimidated--but the
people of the world that can make the difference.


In the meantime we can talk about the Law of the Jungle...

"When the Law of the Land is the Law of the Jungle"

"One who breaks the law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who
willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the
conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality
expressing the highest respect for law." --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Law of the Jungle (that gives name to my homepage) was inspired by
the injustice of the bicycles (little animals) having no space in the
jungle roads. And that's exactly evident in this article: The Law of
the Land is the Law of the Jungle...

The Law of the Land
by Laura J. Sharp

Ripping around the corner at breakneck speeds, Maverick, Unit 07, Bike
Courier, lays on the brakes in front of one of those giant glass oil
company buildings in downtown Calgary. He skids to a halt, bounces off
his bike, and locks it to the racks outside the building. He zips past
several suits in his mad sprint to get into the building and deliver
his trip.

Several of the suits turn and glare at him as he runs. What is it in
their eyes? Is that hate? Or is it jealousy? When Maverick returns,
speeding faster because of inertia. He climbs on to his bike and zips
off down the bike ramp towards the road, only to be stopped at the end
of the ramp by an officer of the law. The law is upheld and physics is
stopped. Maverick receives his ticket.

This is one small event in the daily life of a courier, as they dodge
glares, outrun shouts and profanities, and try to monitor the
co-ordinates of the police officers "just doing their jobs." Never
mind the onslaught of three million tons of steel whizzing past the
bike riders every day. When asked why he got the ticket Maverick
replies:

"...Irate secretary bitches from hell breathing down your neck, all in
the name of greed from management breathing down their neck for their
millions of dollars in your courier bag, which they can't get (there)
any damn quicker than on a bicycle in the inner city core. And they're
more than happy to cut you off on the way to the office to check on
those millions you have in your bag. See, it all comes down to a
greedy suit pig."

The Bike Couriers are a community of people providing a necessary and
essential service to the same community of people who would love to
see them squished against the side of a bus, or taken down by a
S.W.A.T. team for trying to deliver their envelopes. It is this
community that the couriers serve, who file complaints to city hall
demanding by-laws for their own protection against "these hoodlums who
defile the streets and threaten the safety of the pedestrians," as one
downtown suit put it. Or as Stephanie Keer from the Calgary Sun, circa
1990, put it "(the Bike Couriers are) evil daredevils, and idiots."

(snip)

So yes, bike riders are a threat to the common security of the
populace that is released upon the streets every weekday at noon. But
the common security is merely a sense, a false prophet that dictates
the ruin of not only those that enforce the silly laws, but those that
rely upon the silly laws for a sense of protection from the wild world
of the free spirit.

The free spirit that owns the world of couriers. The free spirit that
owns the wind and those that choose to ride in it. The free spirit
that flies at the back of Maverick, Unit 07, as he tears up to the
next office tower made of glass.

It is this freedom that prevents the Bike Courier from ever being
caught. Caught within a self-defeating dome of glass and oil, and
trapped from the outside world where reality still reigns.

more...

http://www.angelfire.com/ct/cmwd/ls.html

http://committed.to/justiceforpeace