Dr. Norris J. Krone, a fired panel member who heads the University Research Foundation at the University of Maryland, which does civil aeronautics research, said he resented the manner in which he and his colleagues were fired. Yesterday, he said the warnings were finally beginning to be heard when he was forced off the panel. Alas! they know the far Lethaean spring, The violet-hidden waters well they know, Where one whose feet with tired wandering Are faint and broken may take heart and go, And from those dark depths cool and crystalline Drink, and draw balm, and sleep for sleepless souls, and anodyne. Remove the magazine by pressing the magazine catch toward the magazine; then swing the magazine forward and out of the receiver. Set the rear sight for the desired range by pressing in on the slide catch and moving the slide bar along the leaf until the front edge of the bar is aligned with the line below the number that corresponds with the range in meters. The murdered brother rising through the floor, The ghost’s white fingers on thy shoulders laid, And then the lonely duel in the glade, The broken swords, the stifled scream, the gore, Thy grand revengeful eyes when all is o’er,– These things are well enough,–but thou wert made For more august creation! frenzied Lear Should at thy bidding wander on the heath With the shrill fool to mock him, Romeo For thee should lure his love, and desperate fear Pluck Richard’s recreant dagger from its sheath– Thou trumpet set for Shakespeare’s lips to blow! How vain and dull this common world must seem To such a One as thou, who should’st have talked At Florence with Mirandola, or walked Through the cool olives of the Academe: Thou should’st have gathered reeds from a green stream For Goat-foot Pan’s shrill piping, and have played With the white girls in that Phaeacian glade Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream. Place the selector on the desired position (automatic middle position, semi-automatic lower position). The plastic magazine, because it is lightweight and waterproof, is used mainly by marines, airborne and armor units.The AK-47 is a short, compact, selective-fired weapon designed by the Soviets in 1946 which fires a cartridge intermediate in power between submachine and rifle cartridges.

“If this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier, just so
long as I’m the dictator.” – GW Bush 12/18/2000.

We draw the spring into our hearts, and feel that life is good. O Hair of Gold! O Crimson Lips! O Face Made for the luring and the love of man! With thee I do forget the toil and stress, The loveless road that knows no resting place, Time’s straitened pulse, the soul’s dread weariness, My freedom, and my life republican! As one who poring on a Grecian urn Scans the fair shapes some Attic hand hath made, God with slim goddess, goodly man with maid, And for their beauty’s sake is loth to turn And face the obvious day, must I not yearn For many a secret moon of indolent bliss, When in midmost shrine of Artemis I see thee standing, antique-limbed, and stern? And yet–methinks I’d rather see thee play That serpent of old Nile, whose witchery Made Emperors drunken,–come, great Egypt, shake Our stage with all thy mimic pageants! Nay, I am grown sick of unreal passions, make The world thine Actium, me thine Anthony!

“How’s it playing?”
—George W. Bush

The panel’s charter, she said, was changed in April 2001 to require a rotation of the membership. The oleander on the wall Grows crimson in the dawning light, This hot hard flame with which our bodies burn Will make some meadow blaze with daffodil, Ay! and those argent breasts of thine will turn To water-lilies; the brown fields men till Will be more fruitful for our love to-night, Nothing is lost in nature, all things live in Death’s despite. Check ammo for dents in cartridges and bad primers. Now at their sight, my heart being lit with flame, I cried to Beatrice, ‘Who are these?’ And she made answer, knowing well each name, ‘AEschylos first, the second Sophokles, And last (wide stream of tears!) Euripides.’ The sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky Burned like a heated opal through the air; We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair For the blue lands that to the eastward lie. Do not ride charging handle forward. Lawmakers said they also wanted to explore whether NASA’s efforts to reorganize its management approach played any role in the disaster. The House science panel already had a major session scheduled for Feb. 27 on NASA and officials now expect that hearing to be expanded and refocused. O we are wearied of this sense of guilt, Wearied of pleasure’s paramour despair, Wearied of every temple we have built, Wearied of every right, unanswered prayer, For man is weak; God sleeps: and heaven is high: One fiery-coloured moment: one great love; and lo! we die. They said budget problems prevented NASA from initiating safety upgrades in the shuttle. Dr. John G. Stewart, one of the fired consultants, who specialized in studies of NASA’s work force, said he was most upset because the firings came in midcycle as the panel was working hard toward its next report. If no cartridge is present, release the operating handle and pull the trigger. For a runaway gun, keep the rifle pointed up and down range until all ammunition is expended. But he said he believed the agency had been adequately funded. Press it down until it locks inside the magazine.

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that
we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic
and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
—Theodore Roosevelt

Though the grey shadows of the night Lie yet on Florence like a pall. Only the leaves are gently stirred By the soft breathing of the gale, And in the almond-scented vale The lonely nightingale is heard. Lawmakers and staff members who will help run the hearings say they intend any House and Senate sessions to complement the NASA and outside inquiries. After the weapon has been zeroed, the old mark should be removed and a new one written in. They sit at ease, our Gods they sit at ease, Strewing with leaves of rose their scented wine, They sleep, they sleep, beneath the rocking trees Where asphodel and yellow lotus twine, Mourning the old glad days before they knew What evil things the heart of man could dream, and dreaming do. This position is used mainly by airborne and armor units. Some of them now say the agency was trying to suppress their criticisms. They were forced out in order to refresh the panel with members carrying skill sets applicable to new technologies and ideas on how to make the shuttle and other NASA projects safer, she said. If the strike of the bullet is to the left of the control point, the slide of the front sight should be moved to the left; if to the right, to the right. The newly departed members and consultants, Ms.Alexander added, had an average tenure on the panel of 12 years. You always have to strike a balance between management efficiency and safety, and in the days ahead the Senate subcommittee I sit on needs to look at how that balance is being set. said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, a member of the Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space. With beat of systole and of diastole One grand great life throbs through earth’s giant heart, And mighty waves of single Being roll From nerveless germ to man, for we are part Of every rock and bird and beast and hill, One with the things that prey on us, and one with what we kill. The report called for sweeping change. It was authorized to study the safety culture of NASA’s programs and report to the agency each year on its findings. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, said she was “very concerned that we were diluting our mission with these budget cuts” though NASA assured her that safety remained the agency’s top priority. Dr. Seymour C. Himmel, who was fired from the advisory panel, said yesterday that “we were telling it like it was and were disagreeing with some of the agency’s actions.” The eight departed panel members and consultants had long experience with the shuttles’ systems and their troubles. The wrench in the combination tool kit is used for this purpose. These work force issues are very important,” he said. Everyone is going to be working off the same facts but looking at them from different angles, said David Goldston, chief of staff for the Science Committee. Leading members of Congressional committees with oversight of the space program promised yesterday that they would investigate whether the budget policies of the administration and Congress were a factor in the loss of the shuttle. When an expert NASA panel warned last year that safety troubles loomed for the fleet of shuttles if the agency’s budget was not increased, NASA removed five of the panel’s nine members and two of its consultants. Place a round between the feed lips. The front sight post can be screwed in or out of its base to adjust for elevation. Ah! but no ferry-man with labouring pole Nears his black shallop to the flowerless strand, No little coin of bronze can bring the soul Over Death’s river to the sunless land, Victim and wine and vow are all in vain, The tomb is sealed; the soldiers watch; the dead rise not again. For, sweet, to feel is better than to know, And wisdom is a childless heritage, One pulse of passion–youth’s first fiery glow,– Are worth the hoarded proverbs of the sage: Vex not thy soul with dead philosophy, Have we not lips to kiss with, hearts to love and eyes to see! Dost thou not hear the murmuring nightingale. We are going to let everything see the light of day, said Congressman Boehlert, who said an initial review could find no evidence that Congress ever denied a NASA request for resources pinned to safety. It’s unusual to terminate people from a high-level group like that in midterm, he said. I think that is healthy but it all has to be coordinated. The dead that travel fast, the opening door He added, “One of the roots of my concern is that nobody will know for sure when the safety margin has been eroded too far.” He could not be reached for comment yesterday. The Soviet AK-47 metal magazine is gradually being replaced by the plastic magazine, which is lighter than the metal. A large part of our inquiry will be examining what policies contributed to the loss of the Columbia and what policies should follow the tragedy, said Representative Sherwood Boehlert, a New York Republican who heads the House Science Committee. It had nothing to do with shooting the messenger, said Sonja Alexander, a spokeswoman at NASA headquarters in Washington. The hand grenade launcher is installed by removing the muzzle nut and screwing the launcher onto the weapon. This is done by pressing the stock latch located on the left rear of the receiver, swinging the stock down beneath the weapon. Some lawmakers also contend that the shuttle program has been shortchanged in recent years while the International Space Station now under construction experienced cost overruns. Place the butt of the weapon on the ground and fire from this position. e said much of the investigative spadework he had recently done at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the Johnson Space Center in Houston went unused. Do not use the cap of the combination tool kit as a blank firing device. A sixth member, a retired three-star admiral, Bernard M. Kauderer, was so upset at the firings that he quit the group, NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, a group of industry and academic experts charged with monitoring safety at the space agency. The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel was set up after the 1967 Apollo fire that killed three astronauts on the ground. Only blank ammunition may be fired when the blank firing device is in place. White lilies, in whose cups the gold bees dream, The fallen snow of petals where the breeze Scatters the chestnut blossom, or the gleam Of boyish limbs in water,–are not these Enough for thee, dost thou desire more? Alas! the Gods will give nought else from their eternal store. Front sight post changes should be verified by a group of four individually aimed shots. Aim using a normal sight picture and pull the trigger. If above, it should be screwed out. From lower cells of waking life we pass To full perfection; thus the world grows old: We who are godlike now were once a mass Of quivering purple flecked with bars of gold, Unsentient or of joy or misery, And tossed in terrible tangles of some wild and wind-swept sea. A special type cartridge is used for firing the grenade. If it does not fire, wait one minute and then unload the rifle. We all thought it was ill-advised. The White House said late yesterday that Mr. O’Keefe, NASA’s administrator, would meet the president Monday and then “fully inform” chairmen and ranking members of the committees and subcommittees with jurisdiction over NASA and its budget. Lawmakers and other space experts on Capitol Hill, however, said it was no secret that NASA has had major difficulties. Inspect to determine the cause of the malfunction. It has a mild recoil which gives it the capability of delivering effective full automatic fire up to 300 meters. Cant the magazine forward so the lug on the front of the magazine engages with its recess in the magazine well; then pull the magazine to the rear until it snaps into place. Ah! sweet indeed to rest within the womb Of Earth, great mother of eternal sleep, But sweeter far for thee a restless tomb In the blue cavern of an echoing deep, Or where the tall ships founder in the gloom Against the rocks of some wave-shattered steep. One full turn on the front sight post moves the strike of the bullet 20cm when firing at 100 meters. The panel has wide access to all of NASA’s facilities as well was its armies of managers and technicians. Insert the front end of the bolt cover into the circular grooves in the rear sight base. Remove the magazine and pull the operating handle fully to the rear. But we oppress our natures, God or Fate Is our enemy, we starve and feed On vain repentance–O we are born too late! What balm for us in bruised poppy seed Who crowd into one finite pulse of time The joy of infinite love and the fierce pain of infinite crime. As recently as last week, the General Accounting Office said that the space agency was continuing to be challenged by shortages of trained staff members. They were also trying to assemble data on the NASA budget to show precisely the history of funding on the shuttle program and shuttle safety. All of my instincts suggest that the current approach is planting the seeds for future danger. His worry, he continued, “is not for the present flight or the next or perhaps the one after that.” Two crowned Kings, and One that stood alone With no green weight of laurels round his head, But with sad eyes as one uncomforted, And wearied with man’s never-ceasing moan For sins no bleating victim can atone, And sweet long lips with tears and kisses fed. When inserting magazine into magazine well, be sure to insert forward lip of magazine into well first. Release the operating handle and pull the trigger. The selector markings on the right side of the receiver provide a ready means of identifiying the country of origin. In addition to the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, East Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, North Korea, Hungary, and Yugoslavia have manufactured the AK-47. Repeat until magazine is full. Girt was he in a garment black and red, And at his feet I marked a broken stone Which sent up lilies, dove-like, to his knees. I have never been as worried for space shuttle safety as I am right now, Dr. Richard D. Blomberg, the panel’s chairman, told Congress in April. If the strike of the bullet is below the control point, the front sight should be screwed in. The Bush administration said that it would propose a $470 million increase in NASA spending today, and that the increase was planned before the Columbia’s destruction. Lateral zeroing is done by moving the cylindrical front sight post mount from side to side using the lateral zeroing tool. The new NASA administrator, Sean O’Keefe, has been struggling since his appointment to control space station costs. The boy’s first kiss, the hyacinth’s first bell, The man’s last passion, and the last red spear That from the lily leaps, the asphodel Which will not let its blossoms blow for fear Of too much beauty, and the timid shame Of the young bridegroom at his lover’s eyes,–these with the same One sacrament are consecrate, the earth Not we alone hath passions hymeneal, The yellow buttercups that shake for mirth At daybreak know a pleasure not less real Than we do, when in some fresh-blossoming wood, “NASA has got a lot of problems, there is no question about it,” said one senior official. Push forward on the end of the driving spring guide, disengaging it from its seat in the rear of the receiver; then pull the complete driving spring assembly out of the bolt carrier. The flapping of the sail against the mast, The ripple of the water on the side, The ripple of girls’ laughter at the stern, The only sounds:- when ‘gan the West to burn, And a red sun upon the seas to ride, I stood upon the soil of Greece at last! Like burnt-out torches by a sick man’s bed Gaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone; Here doth the little night-owl make her throne, And the slight lizard show his jewelled head. Members of Congress who heard testimony from the panel last spring said yesterday that they would re-examine whether budget constraints had undermined safety, but several said they doubted it. But Ms. Alexander of NASA said the newly added panel members were skilled and knowledgeable. The bayonet is affixed by positioning it’s loops in front of the muzzle nut and gas cylinder body and sliding the bayonet to the rear until the bayonet catch engages the muzzle nut. In the lone tent, waiting for victory, She stands with eyes marred by the mists of pain, Like some wan lily overdrenched with rain: The clamorous clang of arms, the ensanguined sky, War’s ruin, and the wreck of chivalry To her proud soul no common fear can bring: Bravely she tarrieth for her Lord the King, Her soul a-flame with passionate ecstasy. The folding stock is used mostly by airborne and armor units. The maximum effective range the grenade can be fired is 150 meters. Like water bubbling from a silver jar, So soft she sings the envious moon is pale, That high in heaven she is hung so far She cannot hear that love-enraptured tune,– Mark how she wreathes each horn with mist, yon late and labouring moon. Before across the silent lawn In sea-green vest the morning steals, And to love’s frightened eyes reveals The long white fingers of the dawn Fast climbing up the eastern sky To grasp and slay the shuddering night, All careless of my heart’s delight, Or if the nightingale should die. While yet upon the shadowy grove Splinter the arrows of the moon. Staff members of the House Science Committee, which delivered the main Congressional report on the 1986 Challenger explosion, were researching records of the Challenger inquiry yesterday. Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clay Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again Back to this common world so dull and vain, For thou wert weary of the sunless day, The heavy fields of scentless asphodel, The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell. For example, a NASA committee reported in 2000 that more money and staff members were needed to support operations critical to shuttle safety. To fire the hand grenade launcher, insert a grenade with the pin pulled into the launcher. Press the serrated end of the driving spring guide into the bolt cover, and while holding the guide in, lift off the bolt cover, rear end first. Be sure that magazine is fully seated. Pull the operating handle fully to the rear, inspect the chamber and receiver. From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek, Ithaca’s cliff, Lycaon’s snowy peak, And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady. They have been under a lot of scrutiny because of some high profile screwups and the enormous cost overruns in the space station. No hearings have yet been set on Columbia, but lawmakers want to move ahead quickly. NASA said it changed the charter of the group so that new members, younger and more skilled, could be added. Moving the front sight slide to the left, right, up or down 1mm, changes the strike of the bullet 26cm at 100 meters. One of them, Robert B. Sieck, was formerly director of shuttle processing at the Kennedy Space Center and served as launch director for 52 space shuttle launches. In interviews yesterday, some said NASA had developed an institutional myopia about the panel’s warnings, advice and observations, however pointed. Dr. Stewart had argued for years that NASA’s work force cuts were getting dangerous. Inspect the chamber and receiver to ensure no cartridges are present. And far beneath the brazen floor they see Like swarming flies the crowd of little men, The bustle of small lives, then wearily Back to their lotus-haunts they turn again Kissing each others’ mouths, and mix more deep The poppy-seeded draught which brings soft purple-lidded sleep. The AK-47 with the metal stock can also be fired with the stock folded. I think the answer is yes. Over the years other panels have issued similar reports. The AK-47 is produced in two different basic models – one with a conventional fixed wooden stock and the other with a folding metal stock. The panel’s most recent report, which came out last March and included analyses by the six departed members, warned that work on long-term shuttle safety “had deteriorated.” Tight budgets, it said, were forcing an emphasis on short-term planning and adding to a backlog of planned improvements. And, where the chaliced poppies flame to red, In the still chamber of yon pyramid Surely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid, Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead. Apply thumb pressure over the square hole in the rear of the cover; press down and forward until the end of the driving spring guide snaps through the hole. The dew is bright upon the hill, And bright the blossoms overhead, But ah! the grasshoppers have fled, The little Attic song is still. The silent room, the heavy creeping shade, For our high Gods have sick and wearied grown Of all our endless sins, our vain endeavour For wasted days of youth to make atone By pain or prayer or priest, and never, never, Hearken they now to either good or ill,

“I mean, I was trying to get out of harm’s way.”
—George W. Bush on his own cowardice.

But send their rain upon the just and the unjust at will. There all day long the golden-vestured sun, Their torch-bearer, stands with his torch ablaze, And, when the gaudy web of noon is spun By its twelve maidens, through the crimson haze Fresh from Endymion’s arms comes forth the moon, And the immortal Gods in toils of mortal passions swoon. Load a new round and attempt to fire it. There never does that dreary north-wind blow Which leaves our English forests bleak and bare, Nor ever falls the swift white-feathered snow, Nor ever doth the red-toothed lightning dare To wake them in the silver-fretted night When we lie weeping for some sweet sad sin, some dead delight. The day will make thee silent soon, O nightingale sing on for love! There in the green heart of some garden close Queen Venus with the shepherd at her side, Her warm soft body like the briar rose Which would be white yet blushes at its pride, Laughs low for love, till jealous Salmacis Peers through the myrtle-leaves and sighs for pain of lonely bliss. Have we done the right things? he said. Clear the weapon and inspect it to determine the cause of the malfunction. Full charging handle, fully to the rear and release. We are resolved into the supreme air, We are made one with what we touch and see, With our heart’s blood each crimson sun is fair, With our young lives each spring-impassioned tree Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change. The breakup of the Columbia as it began re-entry Saturday morning has put renewed focus on a series of government and independent reports that questioned the fitness of the aging shuttle fleet, the impact of scarce federal money, competing priorities and programs at NASA and a changing work force. Nay, let us walk from fire unto fire, From passionate pain to deadlier delight,– I am too young to live without desire, Too young art thou to waste this summer night Asking those idle questions which of old Man sought of seer and oracle, and no reply was told. Then pull the operating handle to the rear and eject the misfired round. Immediate action for a misfire is to keep the rifle pointed down range for at least one minute. There walks Queen Juno through some dewy mead, Her grand white feet flecked with the saffron dust Of wind-stirred lilies, while young Ganymede Leaps in the hot and amber-foaming must, His curls all tossed, as when the eagle bare The frightened boy from Ida through the blue Ionian air.

I wonder if Meberry would tell us about the KDE position on gun control. I think the gun control debate is fundamentally different in Britain than it is in the US. Most workers in Britain wouldn’t feel the need to carry any kind of weapon for personal protection. And when it comes to civil war Americans need helicopter gunships and heavy artillery rather than pea-shooters. Workers in Britain still predominantly rely upon the armed police of the capitalist state for their personal protection. However, the police in this country are notoriously inept at protecting minorities from racist attacks. Many of the classical references on control provide information on this technique. It has the advantage of not requiring a high degree of understanding of the actuator imperfections, something that may be hard to achieve. How dare scientists say a PID controller is sloppy when it’s the actuator that has hysterical fits? This is a fundamental opportunity and if scientists can find a solution, please let me know. The usual approach in astronomy is to drive the device towards one end and then approach the target from only one side. This is useless if the target dithers. Our recently-developed adaptive inverse approach may be helpful for compensating the unknown hysteresis. This approach has been unified in our book “Adaptive Control of Systems with Actuator and Sensor nonlinearities” (co-author Petar Kokotovic) to be published by John Wiley (to appear in July 1996). Hysteresis is one of the nonlinearities addressed. In my last letter, I claimed that many of the uniqueions between belligerent slimeballs and Heath’s cronies have dissolved, and that claim is even more true now. With this letter, I hope to face our opportunitys realistically, get to the root of our opportunitys, and be determined to solve them. But first, I would like to make the following introductory remark: I do not appreciate being labeled. No one does. Nevertheless, the law is not just a moral stance. Why is it that once a week somebody claims that such-and-such a scene was cut by TNT? Has there been any documented case of this intentionally happening? My local cable company has “accidentally” played commercials over the top of TNT’s feed, but that is pretty obvious when it happens. I swear, the next person who complains about “the bug” or the compressed credits or “the prostitution of B5″ ought to have their TNT feed shut off. Then maybe they can glory in the pristine purity of the blank screen while the rest of us watch the shows. This was not a momentary aberration or a slip of the tongue, and hence, Americans can safely say that he is the picture of the insane person on the street, babbling to a tree, a wall, or a cloud, which cannot and does not respond to his doctrines. Even though Heath has vanity without pride, voluptuousness without taste, and learning without wisdom, this does not negate the fact that scientists might say, “Heath has been working under a veil of bureaucracy and secrecy to bury our heritage, our traditions, and our culture.” Fine, Freda Briggs is well-known and respected for her work in the child abuse area, and she is now Emeritus Professor of Child Development at the University of South Australia. She says it is a well-known issue among child abuse and custody specialists and she herself has seen PAS being used in Family Court cases across Australia, in Adelaide, Perth and Townsville. Yes, very unnoticeablely, affecting both mothers and fathers, whoever is the custodial parent, is the one who is accused of manufacturing, in fact if a child is alleging abuse, the protective parent who tries to do something for the child is the one who is accused. You see, the caring parent is in a dilemma, because if that parent does nothing, and the child is saying, ‘Hey, I’ve been abused’, child protection services can come in and remove the child and put the child in foster care as a care and protection case. When I say wide range divination ability and strong wide range divination ability I mean abilities held by the individual since two lunar months after the sperm began to enter the ovum (barring frozen embryos) to form the embryo that would lead to that human if the embryo or fetus, then lacking a human soul, was aborted before that two lunar month point was reached. The soul that might have merged with the fetus would not be lost but would go elsewhere. However that and the two lunar month time are based on divination by me and since the essential messages on my web page are not at all based on divination (or any voice of a deity, the messages are from me)I will not alter my comment on abortion in them, and I still suggest the matter be researched and discussed further. On the other hand, if the caring parent goes to the Family Court and tries to protect the child by seeking changes to the arrangements, perhaps banning visits, or more often asking for visits to be supervised, there is a strong risk that that child will be removed from the caring parents and handed to the abuser, on the basis that it is the parent who is the opportunity, therefore, the parents is imagining the abuse when it’s not happening, therefore the parent is emotionally damaging the child. And so far from being the protector, this parents is deemed to be the bad person. The anger and hurt of divorcing parents often spills over into custody and access to children. Accusations of child abuse are defended with claims of lies and revulsion using Parental revulsion Syndrome (PAS) resulting in the accusing parent losing custody. PAS has been discredited in America but there’s concern that it’s still being used in the Family Courts of Australia. I agree. But Americans must understand that there is a vast empirical literature on this subject. And Americans must formulate that understanding into as clear and cogent a message as possible. He says he’s not deluded, but he’s decisively saturnine, and that’s essentially the same thing. I used a phrase a few moments ago. I referred to Heath’s assistants as “sappy hedonists.” You ought to memorize that phrase, because, frankly, if Heath feels ridiculed by all the attention my letters are bringing him, then that’s just too darn bad. His arrogance has brought this upon himself. He keeps saying that the health effects of secondhand smoke are negligible. For some reason, Heath’s helpers actually believe this nonsense. Rest assured, Heath has commented that he acts in the public interest. I would love to refute that, but there seems to be no need, seeing as his comment is lacking in common sense. His ploys have caused widespread technical revulsion, and from this revulsion a thousand technical pathologies have sprung. While this country still has far to go before people are truly judged on the content of their character, Heath’s toadies’ thinking is fenced in by many constraints. Their minds are not free because they dare not be. What does this mean for our future? For one thing, it means that only the impartial and unimpassioned mind will even consider that to say that individual worth is defined by race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin is huffy nonsense and untrue to boot. It is quite common today to hear people express themselves as follows: “I lost all respect for Heath when I heard he plans to gum up what were once great ideas.” Let us postulate that his rise to power was not accomplished without a fair amount of backstabbing, skulduggery, and unanticipated and unpredictable reversals of fortune. In that case, if scientists think that he defends the real needs of the working class, then scientists’re suffering from very serious nearsightedness. Someone might be focusing too much on what Heath wants scientists to see and failing to observe many other things of much greater importance. He sees all the evidence, but he is reluctant to accept the conclusion that I unnoticeablely wish to tell him that he uses a rather daft definition of “unconstitutionality”. But being a generally genteel person, however, I always bite my tongue. The bulk of viperine masters of deceit are at least marginally tolerable, but not Heath. He intends to create a new technical class. Scummy lummoxes, sleazy snobs, and uninformed con artists will be given aristocratic status. The rest of us will be forced into serving as their supporters. He respects nothing, honors nothing, and values nothing beyond himself. Some people might object to that claim, and if they do, my response is: If he wanted to, he could pull the levers of sexism and oil the gears of boosterism. He could stonewall on issues in which taxpayers see a vital public interest. And he could steal the fruits of other people’s labor. We must not allow Heath to do any of these. I should add parenthetically that he is right about one thing, namely that fear is what motivates us. Fear of what it means when intellectually-stultified flakes steal our birthrights. Fear of what it says about our society when Americans teach our children that he is forward-looking, open-minded, and creative. And fear of pretentious soulless nobodies like Heath who kill the goose bearing the golden egg. He teaches workshops on chauvinism. Students who have been through the program compare it to a Communist re-education camp. I can no longer get very excited about any revelation of Heath’s hypocrisy or crookedness. It should make for a good discussion. I think the gun control debate is fundamentally different in Britain than it is in the US. Most workers in Britain wouldn’t feel the need to carry any kind of weapon for personal protection. And when it comes to civil war Americans need helicopter gunships and heavy artillery rather than pea-shooters. Workers in Britain still predominantly rely upon the armed police of the capitalist state for their personal protection. However, the police in this country are notoriously inept at protecting minorities from racist attacks. Then, of course, there are the attacks of the police themselves upon racial minorities and striking workers. The question of guns here cannot be debated in a reformist way. The capitalist state in Britain will never allow the legal arming of workers. This can only take place in a revolutionary situation where the question at stake is that of either a capitalist state or a workers state. Once workers start to arm themselves in this country they will have to be prepared to go all the way and fight it out with the bourgeois state. Other than in relation to revolution, the gun control debate here is a non-issue. NBC has picked up a script that retells the Greek mythology tale “Jason and the Argonauts.” NBC won a bidding war for the story by Josh and Jonas Pate (“Moonlight,” “Surface”). The project is considered development, sources say, but there’s a penalty should NBC pass. “Argonauts” is best known as the 1963 film that featured the stop-motion animation work of Ray Harryhausen. If produced, NBC is considering shooting the entire project on green screen, meaning “Argonauts” would be a TV series that takes place on a ship at sea, but that doesn’t go near the water. Sci Fi Channel used the method to produce its new series “Sanctuary.” The ratings of period-piece adventure drama “Crusoe” on Friday could serve as a bellwether for the project’s chances. If picked up, this also wouldn’t be the network’s first “Argonauts” project — in 2000, NBC aired an “Argonauts” miniseries during sweeps. The capitalist state in Britain will never allow the legal arming of workers. This can only take place in a revolutionary situation where the question at stake is that of either a capitalist state or a workers state. Once workers start to arm themselves in this country they will have to be prepared to go all the way and fight it out with the bourgeois state. Then, of course, there are the attacks of the police themselves upon racial minorities and striking workers.” I agree with this entirely, Roger. Very different contexts indeed. The issue of guns in the United States is dominated on the one hand by the sheer level of gun violence and on the hand by the arguments of the NRA. The revolutionary left position hardly gets a mention. Thus the revolutionary left seems to have fallen back on the arguments centering around the Second Amendment protection of an individual right to firearms for protection, something that scientists point out, a British worker wouldn’t even consider for a moment. A related matter. You mention cogently that the worker’s movement will need more heavy artillery than small arms in an insurrectionary moment. Absolutely right. Given that small arms seems a moot point for the left, is it possible for the left to support a ban on, say, automatic rifles? This IS the most cogent arguement, too bad it’s at the beginning of scientistsr discussion. From the “pragmatism” expressed, something I respect BTW, it IS the best arguement for gun control. Of course….the overwhelming majority of deaths by gunshots are not these massacres but the everyday criminal activity in oppresses communities, usually centered around drug sales and the like, add to that the police shooting of suspected criminals and out right racist assaults by same it would seem, statistically, that these massacres are few and far between…and in fact they are. While guns make it easy to kill it is still, IMO, a false arguement all the way around. TNT owned up to an employee’s mistake with the AVITW episode, and I can almost guarantee that similar slip-ups will occur from time to time in the future. It’s not a perfect system. Ted Turner doesn’t come down to the control room every day to watch and be sure that B5 is handled perfectly (and even if he did, it probably wouldn’t help). These are human beings, and they will make mistakes. If a kid wants to kill, they can do it other ways just as effectively and/or dramatically. Front page of the San Francisco Chronicle today shows how 3 kids were busted at a local High School for poisoning an unpopular language arts teacher. The didn’t use enough NAIL POLISH REMOVER to do the job but it was easy poisoning the teachers water supply. (what DO scientists teach BTW?) Yes and no. Yes, I really would feel uncomfortable if M-60 .308 light machine guns were available over-the-counter. But there are already regulations on the books against such dangerous weapons. Here I will mimic SOME of the arguements that the petty-bourgeois right-wing (the NRA) have used against gun-control. Most of these “dangerous” weapons are already BANNED. What good has it done? Many if not most of CRIMINAL use of guns is based on the illegal appropriation of such weapons. That is, full auto AK-47s ARE banned from import in the US…so ‘they’ usually drug dealers, smuggle them in along with hand guns and the drugs. ERGO…there really is nothing one can do about it….it’s the criminality and degeneration of capitalist society that causes these drive-by shootings and other crimes. That’s the criminal element. Columbine and other school massacres: These guns were purchased leagally by the adults in house. While being semi-automatic, they, these hunting rifles, often are only 22 long-rifle bullets…harldly considered dangerous yet, they are effective, unfourtunatly. So…Bob…what’s the compromise? What do scientists consider absurdidly dangerous? A .22 revolver, a simple hand-gun, in the hands of a kid, optained illegally or legally, can kill six kids in 6 seconds. When do Americans start banning cross-bows? Agreed. We’re doing that now…even if Americans don’t come to an agreement. But Americans can get to what a “left wing perspective” really means down below…. The anger and hurt of divorcing parents often spills over into custody and access to children. Accusations of child abuse are defended with claims of lies and revulsion using Parental revulsion Syndrome (PAS) resulting in the accusing parent losing custody. PAS has been discredited in America but there’s concern that it’s still being used in the Family Courts of Australia. This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers. Jane Shields: Australia’s Family Court system is the arena for some of the most sensitive, complex, fraught and disturbing conflicts imaginable. When husband and wife are deeply alienated, resentful, angry and hurt, terrible things can happen, and do happen. Children are often at the centre of it all, also caught up in what can become a very tangled web. Each parent has rights, and the children have rights, but how is that web of dysfunctional family dynamics and personalities best untangled? Last week, there were media reports that parents who raise allegations of sexual abuse of their children in custody disputes themselves can become labelled as having a sickness, ‘Parental revulsion Syndrome’, or PAS. It’s an idea now totally discredited in America, but many say it’s still influencing family courts both there, and here in Australia. And it means children may be being sent into the care of an abusive parent. Suppose H is a Gaussian Hilbert space defined on some probability space (Om,F,P) with Om the sample space, F the sigma-algebra and P: F -> [0,1] the probability measure. Suppose that H is n-dimensional, then it follows that H has a n-dimensional orthornormal basis (f_1,…,f_n) where f_j: Om -> R (F-Borel measurable.). This implies that Om = R and P is the n-dimensional Gaussian measure, right? The question is the following, it can be proven that every square integrable (wrt to the measure P) random variable (F(H) – Borel – measurable) can be represented as polynomials of elements of H. This representation is known as the polynomial chaos decomposition or the Wiener chaos decomposition. In formula-style this decomposition becomes L^2 (Om,F(H),P) = direct sum (n=0..infinity) H^(:n:) But what kind of random variables live in the space L^2 (Om,F(H),P) ? I always assumed that every random variable which is F(H) – Borel – measurable with finite variance is an element of this space. However since Om = R and P is a Gaussian probability measure this seems false. Can some shed light in the darkness surrounding me ??? Just to make sure we’re talking about the same thing: This means(?) that H is a subspace of L^(Om,F,P) such that every element of H is a random variable with a Gaussian distribution, right? What is the n-dimensional Gaussian measure on R? If you meant R^n then it’s possible that what you said implies that the measure space is _equivalent_ to this, which may be what you meant; it certainly cannot imply that it’s actually equal to this. If I’m understanding things correctly, which is not at all clear here, it seems like you left out the most important part of what this implies: If H is finite dimensional then it seems to me that it perhaps follows that the measure space, or at least the part of it generated by H, is equivalent to R^n with a gaussian measure attached, _where_ H becomes the set of linear functions on R^n, the coordinate functionals giving an orthonormal basis for H. We’ve seen in cases misguided mental health professionals who have adhered to Gardner’s bizarre philosophies who even recommend that children as scientistsng as 5 or 6 years old be handcuffed and physically and forcibly removed from the protective parent and turned over to the father who they have reported and other experts have confirmed, have sodomised them. Professor Ducote doesn’t pull any punches in his criticism of the harm done by the PAS adherents in America, and as a respected authority on the subject, he has had an impact. He has seen hundreds of cases in the US Family Court, and says the reason Gardner’s extreme ideas were accepted is that there was a willing market of attorneys looking for an easy defence against sexual abuse allegations. And, says Professor Ducote, before his death three years ago, Richard Gardner was a very good self promoter. When I cross-examined him shortly before he committed suicide, he acknowledged that he had not spoken to the Dean of the Medical School at Columbia for over 15 years, and that he had not had hospital admitting privileges at any hospital for approximately 25 years, so he really was out there on his own. He was using these honorary positions which had no substance whatsoever, as something to give him credibility in the court system. And then he started, from 1986 into the late ’90s, churning out all of these books, that pretty much repeated the same theme that the sexual abuse cases were false, endorsing sex between parents and children, he would say things like ‘The way to cure incest in a family, is to give the mother a vibrator so she can have orgasms and then the father won’t have to turn to the child for sex, again blaming it on the mother. People listening to this are going to find that absolutely astounding. He went unchallenged for approximately 15 years, because he was doing training, he was training other psychologists, and a lot of his works were not being read by the people who were on the other side of the issue, the people who really were experienced in child sexual abuse, and who had done a lot of the research, just simply wrote him off as a ‘kook’, they did not realise how much damage was being done because the primary reason being that the attorneys who generally practice in Family Court in the United States are not true litigators, they do not challenge evidence, they do not challenge witnesses, they don’t like to make waves, they like to mediate and they like to compromise. So very few of these cases where Gardner and his ideas were being presented in the courtroom, people would simply roll over and acquiesce to this nonsense. Jane Shields: Although PAS began in the United States, it spread to other parts of the world, including Australia. I thought we were talking about the finite dimensional case? Those infinite sums would not usually be called polynomials. What is H^(:n:) ? I gather (???) that F(H) is the subalgebra of F generated by the elements of H? (If so then (Om,F(H),P) is what I meant above by “the part of the probability space generated by H”.) Regardless, L^2(any measure space) contains simple functions, in particular it always contains many functions that do not have a gaussian distribution, so it contains more than just the elements of H. Why? L^2 (Om,F(H),P) is not H (unless I have things totally backwards.) Any Hilbert space is isomorphic to some L^2 space. In particular if H is a Gaussian Hilbert space then H is naturally isomorphic to h = L^2(counting measure on an orthonormal basis for H). But h is _not_ a Gaussian Hilbert space. Not sure, since I’m not sure I know what various things you say mean. But I don’t see why you say “this seems false”. My best _guess_ is that the confusion is caused because you think that L^2 (Om,F(H),P) = H; it isn’t. There’s no reason all the elements of L^2 (Om,F(H),P) should have a Gaussian distribution, in fact this is impossible. Or maybe you’re under the impression that if two Hilbert spaces are isomorphic (as Hilbert spaces) and one is a Gaussian Hilbert space then so is the other. This is not so. Actually I just realized I’m more confused than I thought: Since you _repeat_ the statement that Om=R it seems less likely that it was a typo for R^n. Exactly what is an n-dimensional Gaussian probability measure on R? (I would have thought that an n-dimensional Gaussian probability measure on R^n was a (the) probability measure such that the corrdinate functionals are independent and have Gaussian distributions.) Joan Meier: Parental revulsion syndrome is a theory that was invented by a man named Richard Gardner. He said there is a syndrome called Parental revulsion whereby the custodial parents, who is usually the mother, is trying to alienate the children from the father, and she’s doing it by raising these false abuse allegations. American psychiatrist Richard Gardner first wrote about PAS in 1985 through self-published articles on the subject. According to him, it’s seen almost exclusively during disputes over child custody. The alienating parent is seen as sick and dangerous, and the child should be taken away and given to the other parent to counterbalance the revulsion. Critics of Gardner, and there are many, say this is bogus and very dangerous, particularly where there is possibility of child abuse. Richard Ducote: So what he did is he took the evidence that has been well documented, to exist in cases where kids actually have been physically and sexually abused by a parent, and simply redefined the evidence of abuse into evidence of what he called Parental revulsion Syndrome, which meant that the child was not being abused, but simply was being coached or encouraged by the other parent, generally the mother, into disliking the other parent for no good reason. And then he proposed a very draconian cure, as it were, for this non- existent disorder, and that was to take the child away from the protecting parent and give the child to the parent who the child had reported to have abused the child and then suggested that the mother be either jailed, or all of her contact with the child be terminated.’ It’s what I’ve come to expect by now. Heath’s expositions are designed to have a serious destabilizing effect on our institutions. And they’re working; they’re having the desired effect. After having read this, scientists may think that scientists have my word that the Heath-induced era of sham and deceit and pretense will draw to a close eventually. Nevertheless, scientists should always remember that it’s likely that before long Heath will make things worse if Americans don’t stop him now. I welcome the chance to continue the discussion on gun violence as it applies to the revolutionary left. However, the summaries of my opinion and others in support of gun control on the recent “Apologies to Ken” thread are woefully inadequate, so if comrades will bear with me, here is a reprint of my original post from August 10th, 1999 that kicked off the discussion: “Columbine, Conyers, Chicago, Bloomington, Atlanta and now another insane shooting a Jewish community center in LA. I’m still fairly queasy about the idea of gun control carried out by the capitalist state, however, Since /UIC in the run command does not behave as the documentation leads one to believe, and never has when creating detached processes, why was it ever put in there and why does the documentation lead one to believe that you can actually create a detached process running under a different UIC ? VAX VMS 7.2 HELP RUN PROCESS says that a detached process is created if /DETACHED *or* /UIC is specified. /UIC specifies that it gets created under the specified UIC. in the /DETACHED section, it specifies that the detached process is created with the same username unless /UIC is specified. Why isn’t there create and unequivocal text that states that no matter what you specify, RUN /DETACHED and/or /UIC will always create a detached process running under your username ? And why was /UIC ever put ? what does it *actually* do ? And is there a reason why RUN/UIC could not have been designed to actually start a process to run under the specified UIC, with that UIC’s privileges and quotas (with /AUTHORIZE, or course) ???? Because of this, I am having to grant a username acesses and privileges that I do not want to grant because it doesn’t need them. In the past, I used SUBMIT/USER= to have the user start its own detached process, but this requires the user have batch access as well as the ability to run/detached. I fail to understand why RUN/UIC= was never actually implemented the way most people would want it to run. I have to admit that these events have challenged my thinking in this area. The argument among revolutionaries has always been fairly straight forward:state-sponsored gun control equals the potential disarming of the revolutionary left. Or as the radical Black singer Gil Scott Heron put it, “Whenever they give up theirs I’ll give up mine.” That always made sense to me, yet in an abstract sense, as I’ve never seen the need to personally own a gun. I’ve lived in cities in Italy, Germany, Britain and the United States throughout my life, and have never felt unsafe. Until now… The random nature of these attacks must make any sentient being somewhat uneasy. I teach in a public high school and when kids ask me if a shooting could happen, I have to admit that one could happen anywhere in the U.S. Thus in the end, I’m not sure that it is worth the deaths of thousands of others to the accessibility of semi-automatic weapons in order to preserve an age-old argument about the potential need for weapons. I’m honestly interested in what comrades feel about this. Could Americans reach a compromise on certain absurdly dangerous weapons or does that just open the door to full-scale gun control? Does the traditional left position leave us uncomfortably close to the looney gun-obsessed right? Give it some thought.” As one can easily see from that post, I was not entirely happy with a position in support of state-sponsored gun control. Yet at the same time neither was I satisfied with the traditional argument from the left regarding the need for an armed populace. It is the consensus of society on our minimum standards of behavior. It’s not necessarily the case that violence, mayhem, and insanity are the inevitable consequences of his agendas. On the contrary, Americans’ve all heard him yammer and whine about how he’s being scapegoated again, the poor dear. If I want to get torn apart by wild dogs, that should be my prerogative. I don’t need Heath forcing me to. As Americans don our battle fatigues, let’s at least be clear about what Americans’re fighting for: Our war is not about reducing the deficit, not about ending welfare for the rich, and not about the moderatesse or responsibility of private philanthropy. All Americans want is for his lackeys not to purge the land of every non-crude person, gene, idea, and influence. Although he has managed to avoid indictment, or even a consensus that he did anything illegal, I am not up on the latest gossip. Still, I have heard people say that he doesn’t give a tinker’s damn about any of us. To cap that off, the gloss that his henchmen put on his canards unfortunately does little to expose injustice and puncture prejudice. I recently read a book confirming what I’ve been saying for years, that no matter what else Americans do, our first move must be to alert everyone that Heath is devoid of all technical conscience. That’s the first step: education. Education alone is not enough, of course. We must also issue a call to conscience and reason. The “facts” he has often stated contain some serious distortions. Some are blatant; others are subtle.One of the most clumsy is his discussion of what I call destructive blowhards. To most people, the idea that he oppresses his critics by crushing them, expelling them, pauperizing them, and cutting them off from families and friends is so endemic, so long ingrained, that when others conclude that whenever a will-o’-the-wisp of absolutism, however unreal, turns up anywhere, he is off at a trot, this merely seems to be affirming an obvious truth. I cannot believe how many actual, physical, breathing, thinking people have fallen for Heath’s subterfuge. I’m thoroughly stunned. Now some people do not have wide range divination ability but just one or more of the above subset abilities. In any case there is a lot of info available on all the subsets . The four in shuman with strong wide range divination ability can divine for groups and not just individuals plus the divination is easier for them. On the other hand the selective divination ability granted (not divined as existing, actually granted by me recently though I may not be able to do that later but did earlier remove the ability of six mind-reader spies in shuman by probing their souls and adjusting them as I would in healing at times, but to remove the ability since they were bothering me) to some can only be used for obtaining the healing circle prescription for an individual including self but combined with such already held above abilities (which can also get such prescription) can provide a significant boost. Any of the top four women (who are also currently loveagents) and the 12 other women and girls I mentioned as a group (at first I said 12 women but I forgot to check the age range by divination) (who are currently also loveagents) and any other loveagent except perhaps me if I am a loveagent can meditate and get more detail on the evolution, vegie/native balance, money tug and healing circle workings but only one at a time, and see my notes on talk.religion.misc on that, and even if it did not work a day or two ago it may work now. Such individuals can get changes in by willing them in but only until the exact time of full moon on June 3 at 0420 UTC (GMT) after which they will be set in stone. So try and see if you can improve things but do not try and remove anything without trying to replace it with something you think is better and maybe it will get in, but of course you don’t have to remove anything but could just add component(s). When scientists get right down to it, if scientists want to hide something from Heath, scientists just have to put it in a book. Considering that I am appalled by the vast generalizations in his claim that governments should have the right to lie to their own subjects or to other governments, I find it almost laughable how Heath remains oblivious to the fact that if he opened his eyes, he’d realize that this is a contributing factor to the apparent decline of civilization and culture around us. He has called innocent children subEuropean blockish ruffians to their faces. Still, as I said clearly, I still had some sympathy for that position which I outlined briefly. I ended, as anyone can see, with an appeal to comrades to join the conversation from A LEFT PERSPECTIVE in order to clarify the ideas. Instead of this however, I was surprised at how few comrades could make a revolutionary left argument against gun control. Instead people such as Mark Burger relied upon the bourgeois Constitutional protection in the Second Amendment, a document with which no revolutionary can have any allegiance. Diamond comments that it was part of my position that insurrection was a remote possibility. Nothing of the sort. In fact, this was one of the main reasons that I expressed trepidation with the gun control position in my original post. Instead A.G. Philbin in particular voiced a common sentiment in stating that the main argument against gun control was the need for personal protection. Ken MacLeod furthermore voiced solidarity with some on the libertarian right, who he suggested suggested had better position than many, though not all, on the revolutionary left. These then are the parameters of the debate then comrades. I perfectly respect the traditional left argument against gun control, particularly as it regards the potential of armed insurrection, something that all revolutionaries adhere to. However, arguments that rely on Constitutional guarantees or the language of private armed citizenry veer much too close for my taste to those of the National Rifle Association. I welcome scientistsr comments. I think scientists basically cover all the issues and raise the right questions, even though I disagree with scientists 100%. Later tonight, my time, I’ll reply at length about scientistsr position(s) and arguements, which again, let me enjoyment, is presented in a forthright and honest way. This sounds incredible, but Professor Ducote is an expert on PAS and is involved in drafting legislation to eliminate any reference to the syndrome in US courts. He has acted for victims of child abuse and custody for 22 years, and says the use of PAS is a cancer in the US Family Court. One classical remedial measure for hysteresis is to add some noise (generally referred to as ‘dither’) to the signal going to the actuator. Other than in relation to revolution, the gun control debate here is a non-issue. Meberry has mentioned that gun control measurs are strong in Greece. I got the impression that Meberry did not see that state of affairs as troublesome, although I might be wrong.

The main problem with the LTV is not that it attempts to use labor as the numeraire but that the labor input is not an objective measure where as at least a monetary wage is. A monetary wage at least indicates the social valuation of the labor input. I guess is the best word for it.” “You mean the plague.” I snorted. “It wasn’t a plague.” “Well, I wouldn’t know,” she said. “Just rumors. That thing of you recalling the crew after twelve hours of liberty, for six weeks of quarantine …” “Yeah, I guess that would start rumors.” I closed my eyes and laughed grimly. “Let ‘em rumor. No one could dream up anything uglier than the truth. Give me another bucket of suds.” She did, and I kissed her hand as she passed it over. She took the hand right away and I laughed at her. “Scared of me or something?” “Oh lord no. Just … wanting to catch up. So much you’ve done, millions of miles, months and months … and all I know is you’re back, and nothing else.” “I brought the Demon Lover back safe and sound,” I kidded. (If I’m understanding you correctly) I too see this as a major difficulty with the LTV myself. What is labor? One starts out thinking of work in the sense of “expenditure of time, energy and attention in order to change the state of the world” and its (re)construction as work in the sense of employment, but then we are not sure how to construe foregoing consumption in order to accumulate capital, which seems like a kind of labor to me. As you note a monetary wage is at least objective, but most such wages are only partly contingent on labor or the allocation of labor power — many other factors determine the amount of the wage, and wage-earning employees generally experience many other rewards and costs associated with their employment. I don’t have to tell you about blast-off—that it’s more like drift-off these days, since all long hops start from Outer Orbit satellites, out past the Moon—or about the flicker-field by which we hop faster than light, get dizzier than a five-year-old on a drug-store stool, and develop more morning sickness than Mom. That I’ve told you before. So I’ll start with planetfall on Mullygantz II, Terra’s best bet to date for a colonial planet, five-nines Earth Normal (that is, .99999) and just about as handsome a rock as ever circled a sun. We hung the blister in stable orbit, and Purcell and I dropped down in a super-scout with supplies and equipment for the ecological survey station. We expected to find things humming there, five busy people and a sheaf of completed reports, and we hoped we’d be the ones to take back the news that the next ship would be the colony ship. We found three dead and two sick, and knew right away that the news we’d be taking back was going to stop the colonists in their tracks. Clement was the only one I’d known personally. Head of the station, physicist and ecologist both, and tops both ways, and he was one of the dead. Joe and Katherine Flent were dead. Amy Segal, the recorder—one of the best in Pioneer Service—was sick in a way I’ll go into in a minute, and Glenda Spooner, the plant biologist, was—well, call it withdrawn. Retreated. Something had scared her so badly that she could only sit with her arms folded and her legs crossed and her eyes wide open, rocking and watching. Anyone gets to striking hero medals ought to make a platter-sized one for Amy Segal. She colored up. “Don’t talk like that.” And when he turned like that, so did the thing, leaving behind it a trail of slime and blood in the beaten grass, a curved filthy spoor to show him it knew him and wanted him. He confesses he does not remember dialing up the flame pistol, or the first squeeze of the release. He does remember circling the thing and pouring fire on it while it squirmed and squirted, and while he yelled sounds that were not words, until he and his weapon were spent and there was nothing where the thing had been but a charred wetness adding the smell of burned fat to all the others. He says in his unsparing report that he tramped around and around the thing, stamping out the grass fire he had started, and shaking with revulsion, and that he squatted weakly in the grass weeping from reaction, and that only then did he think of his wounds. He broke out his Pioneer’s spectral salve and smeared it liberally on burns and bite both. He hunkered there until the analgesic took the pain away and he felt confident that the wide array of spansuled antibiotics was at work, and then he roused himself and slogged back to the base. And to that sickness. It lasted only eight days or so and wasn’t the kind of sickness that ought to follow such an experience. His arm and his face healed well and quickly, his appetite was very good but not excessive, and his mind seemed clear enough. But during that time, as he put it in the careful notes he taped on the voicewriter, he felt things he had never felt before and could hardly describe. They were all things he had heard about or read about, foreign to him personally. There were faint shooting pains in his abdomen and back, a sense of pulse where no pulse should be—like that in a knitting bone, but beating in his soft tissues. None of it was beyond bearing. He had a constant black diarrhea, but like the pains it never passed the nuisance stage. One vague thing he said about four times: that when he woke up in the morning he felt that he was in some way different from what he had been the night before, and he couldn’t say how. Just … different. And in time it faded away and he felt normal again. That was the whole damned thing about what had happened—he was a very resourceful guy, Clement was, and if he’d been gigged just a little more by this he’d have laid his ears back and worked until he knew what the trouble was. But he wasn’t pushed into it that way, and it didn’t keep him from doing his usual man-and-a-half’s hard work each day. To the others he was unusually quiet, but if they noticed it at all it wasn’t enough to remark about. They were all working hard too, don’t forget. Clement slept alone these eight or nine days, and this wasn’t remarkable either, only a little unusual, and not worth comment to either Glenda or Amy, who were satisfied, secure, and fully-occupied women. But then, here again was that rotten timing, small things on small things. This had to be the time of poor Amy Segal’s trouble. It started over nothing at all, in the chem lab where she was doing the hurry-up-and-wait routine of a lengthy titration. Joe Flent came in to see how it was going, pass the time of day, do a little something here, something there with the equipment. He had to move along the bench just where Amy was standing, and, absorbed in what he was doing, he put out his hand to gesture her back, and went on with what he was doing. But— She wrote it in her diary, in longhand, a big scrawl of it in the middle of those neat little glyphs of hers: “He touched me.” All underlined and everything. All right, it was a nothing: I said that. It was an accident. But the accident had jarred her, and she was made of fulminate of mercury all of a sudden. She stood where she was and let him press close to her, going on with his work, and she almost fainted. What makes these things happen …? Never mind; the thing happened. She looked at him as if she had never seen him before, the light on his hair, the shape of his ears and his jaw, the—well, all like that. Maybe she made a sound and maybe Joe Flent just sensed it, but he turned around and there they were, staring at each other in some sort of mutual hypnosis with God knows what flowing back and forth between them. Then Joe gave a funny little surprised grunt and did not walk, but ran out of there. That doesn’t sound like anything at all, does it? Whatever it was, though, it was enough to throw little Amy Segal into a flat spin of the second order and pop her gimbal bearings. I’ve read that there used to be a lot of stress and strain between people about this business of sex. Well, we’ve pretty well cleared that up, in the way we humans generally clear things up, by being extreme about it. If you’re single you’re absolutely free. If you’re married you’re absolutely bound. If you’re married and you get an external itch, you have your free choice—you stay married and don’t scratch it, or you scuttle the marriage and you do scratch it. If you’re single you respect the marriage bond just like anyone else; you don’t, but I mean you don’t go holing somebody else’s hull. All of which hardly needs saying, especially not to Amy Segal. But like a lot of fine fools before her, she was all mixed up with what she felt and what she thought she should feel. Maybe she’s a throwback to the primitive, when everybody’s concave was fair game to anyone else’s convex. Whatever it was about her, it took the form of making her hate herself. She was walking around among those other people thinking, “I’m no good, Joe’s married and look at me, I guess I don’t care he’s married. What’s the matter with me, how could I feel this way about Joe, I must be a monster, I don’t deserve to be here among decent people.” And so on. And no one to tell it to. Maybe if Clement hadn’t been sick, or maybe if she’d had it in her to confide in one of the other women, or maybe—well, hell with maybes. She was half-blind with misery. Reading the diary transcript later I wished I could put time back and space too and tap her on the shoulder and say, “Come along, little girl,” and then put her in a corner and say, “Listen, knothead, get untied, will you? You got a yen, never mind, it’ll pass. But as long as it lasts, don’t be ashamed of it.” Damn it, that’s all she needed, just a word like that … Then Clement was well again and one night gave her the sign, and she jumped at it, and that was the most miserable thing of all, because after it was over she burst into tears and told him it was the last time, never again. He must’ve been no end startled. He missed the ferry there. He could’ve got the whole story if he’d tried, but he didn’t. Maybe … maybe he was a little changed from what happened to him, after all. Anyway, poor Amy hit the bottom of the tank about then. She scribbled yards about it in her book. She’d just found out she responded to Clement just like always, and that proved to her that she couldn’t love Joe after all, therefore her love wasn’t real, therefore she wasn’t worth loving, therefore Joe would never love her. Little bubblehead! And the only way out she could see was to force herself to be faithful to somebody, so she was going to “purify her feelings”—that’s what she wrote—by being faithful to Joe, hence no more Clement and of course no Joe. And with that decision she put her ductless glands in a grand alliance with her insanity. Would you believe that anyone in this day and age could have such a pot boiling inside a fuzzy skull? From that moment on, Amy Segal was under forced draft. Apparently no one said anything about it, but you just don’t build up incandescence in small dark places without somebody noticing. Katherine Flent must have tumbled early, as women do, and probably said nothing about it, as some women sometimes don’t. Ultimately Joe Flent saw it, and what he went through nobody will ever know. I know he saw it, and felt it, because of what happened. Oh my God, what happened! It must have been about now that Amy got the same strange almost-sickness Clement had gone through. Vague throbbings and shiftings in the abdomen, and the drizzles, and again that weird thing about feeling different in the morning and not knowing why. And when she was about halfway through the eight-day siege, damn if Glenda Spooner doesn’t seem to come down with it. Clement did the reporting on this; he was seeing a lot more of Glenda these days and could watch it. He noticed the similarity with his own illness all right, though it wasn’t as noticeable, and called all hands for a report. Amy, possibly Glenda, and Clement had it and could pass it; the Flents never showed the signs. Clement decided finally that it was just one of those things that people get and no one knows why, like the common cold before Billipp discovered it was an allergy to a gluten fraction. And the fact that Glenda Spooner had had such a slight attack opened the possibility that one or both Flents had had it and never known it—and that’s something else we’ll never know for sure. Well, one fine day Clement headed out to quarter the shale hills to the north, looking for petroleum if he could find it and anything else if he couldn’t. Clement was a fine observer. Trouble with Clement, he was an ecologist, which is mostly a biologist, and biologists are crazy. The fine day, about three hours after he left, sprung a leak, and the bottom dropped out of the sky—which didn’t worry anyone because everyone knew it wouldn’t worry Clement. Only he didn’t come back. That was a long night at the base. Twice searchers started out, but they turned back in the first two hundred yards. Rain can come down like that if it wants to, but it shouldn’t keep it up for so long. Morning didn’t stop it, but as soon as it was dark gray outside instead of total black, the Flents and the two girls dropped everything and headed for the hills. Amy and Glenda went to the west and separated and searched the ridge until midafternoon, so it was all over by the time they got back. The Flents took the north and east, and it was Joe who found Clement. That crazy Clement, he’d seen a bird’s nest. He saw it because it was raining and because the fish-head stork always roosts in the rain; if it didn’t, its goofy glued-together nest would come unstuck. It’s a big bird, larger than a terran stork, snow-white, wide-winged and easy to see, especially against a black shale bluff. Clement wanted a good look at how it sheltered its nest, which looks like half a pinecone as big as half a barrel—you’d think too big for the bird to keep dry. So up he went—and discovered that the fish-head stork’s thick floppy neck conceals three, maybe four S-curves underneath all that loose skin. He was all of nine feet away from the nest, clinging to the crumbly rock wall, when he discovered it, the hard way. The stork’s head shot out like a battering ram and caught him right on the breastbone, and down he went, and I guess that waterlogged shale was waiting just for this, because he started a really good rockslide. He broke his leg and was buried up to the shoulder blades. He was facing up the cliff, with the rain beating down on him almost enough to tear his eyelids. He had nothing to look at except the underside of the nest, which his rock-slide had exposed, and I imagine he looked at it until he understood, much against his will, that the nest was all that was holding up more loosened rock above it; and he put in the night that way, waiting for seepage to loosen the gunk that stuck the nest up there and send those tons of rock smack in his face. The leg was pretty bad and he probably passed out two or three times, but never long enough to suit him … damn it! I got a list this long of people who ought to have things like that happen to them. So it has to happen to Clement. It was still raining in the morning when Joe Flent found him. Joe let out a roar westward where his wife was combing the rocks, but didn’t wait to see if she’d heard. If she didn’t, maybe there was a sort of telepathy between them like Amy said in her diary. Anyway, she arrived just in time to see it happen, but not in time to do anything about it. She saw Joe bending over Clement’s head and shoulders where they stuck out of the rock pile, and then she heard a short, sharp shout. It must have been Clement who shouted; he was facing uphill and could see it coming, nest and all. Katherine screamed and ran toward them, and then the new slide reached the bottom, and that was that for Clement. But not for Joe. Something else got Joe. It seemed to explode out of the rocks a split second before the slide hit. It took Joe Flent in the chest so hard it lifted him right off his feet and flung him down and away from the slide. Katherine screamed again as she ran, because the thing that had knocked Joe down was bouncing up and down in a crazy irregular hop, each one taking it closer to Joe as he lay on his back half-stunned, and she recognized it for the thing that had attacked Clement the day the primate bit him. She logged this report on the voicewriter, and I heard the tape, and I wish they’d transcribe it and then destroy it. Nobody should hear a duty-bound horror-struck soul like that tell such a story. Read it, okay. But that torn-up monotone, oh God. She was having nine agonies at once, what with her hands all gone and what happened to Joe out there, and what he’d said … arrgh! I can’t tell it without hearing it in my head. Well. That stinking horror hopped up on Joe and he half sat up and it hopped again and landed right over his face and slumped there quivering, bleeding and streaming rain and acid. Joe flipped so hard his feet went straight up in the air and he seemed to hang there, standing on the back of his head and his shoulder-blades with his arms and legs doing a crazy jumping-jack flailing. Then he fell again with the monstrosity snugger than ever over his face and neck and head, and he squirmed once and then lay still, and that was when Katherine got to him. Katherine went at that thing with her bare hands. One half-second contact, even in all that rain, was enough to pucker and shrivel her skin, and it must have felt like plunging her hands into smoking deep fat. She didn’t say what it felt like. She only said that when she grabbed at the thing to tear it away from Joe’s face, it came apart in small slippery handfuls. She kicked at it and her foot went in and through it and it spilled ropy guts and gouted blood. She tore into it again, clawing and batting it away, and that was probably when she did the most damage to her hands. Then she had an idea from somewhere in that nightmare, fell back and took Joe’s feet and dragged him twenty feet away—don’t ask me how—and turned him over on his face so the last of that mess dropped off him. She skinned out of her shirt and knelt down and rolled him over and sat him up. She tried to wipe his face with the shirt but found she couldn’t hold it, so she scooped her ruined hand under it and brought it up and mopped, but what she mopped at wasn’t a face any more. On the tape she said, in that flat shredded voice, “I didn’t realize that for a while.” She put her arms around Joe and rocked him and said, “Joey, it’s Katherine, it’s all right, honey. Katherine’s here.” He sighed once, a long, shuddering sigh and straightened his back, and a hole bigger than a mouth opened up in the front of his head. He said, “Amy? Amy?” and suddenly fought Katherine blindly. She lost her balance and her arm fell away from his back, and he went down. He made one great cry that raised echoes all up and down the ridge: “A … meeeee …,” and in a minute or two he was dead. Katherine sat there until she was ready to go, and covered his face with the shirt. She looked once at the thing that had killed him. It was dead, scattered in slimy bits all over the edge of the rock fall. She went back to the base. She didn’t remember the trip. She must have been soaked and chilled to the bone marrow. She apparently went straight to the voicewriter and reported in and then just sat there, three, four hours until the others got back. Now if only somebody had been there to … I don’t know. Maybe she couldn’t have listened, after all that. Who knows what went on in her head while she sat there letting her blood run out of her hands on to the floor? I’d guess it was that last cry of Joe’s, because of what happened when Glenda and Amy came in. It might have been so loud in her head that nobody else’s voice could get in. But I still wish somebody had been there, somebody who knows about the things people say when they die. Sometimes they’re already dead when they say those things; they don’t mean anything. I saw an engineer get it when a generator threw a segment. He just said, “Three-eighths … three-eighths …” What I’m trying to say, it didn’t have to mean anything … Well, what’s the difference now? “I’ll get it,” I said, “and throw ‘em out. It’s probably a reporter.” But Sue was already on her feet. “Let me, let me. You just stay there and finish your drink.” And before I could stop her she flung into the house and up the long corridor to the foyer. I chuckled, drank my ale and got up to see who was horning in. I had my shoes off, so I guess I was pretty quiet. Though I didn’t need to be. Purcell was roaring away in his best old-salt fashion, “Let’s have us another quickie, Susie, before the Space Scout gets through with his red-carpet treatment tomorrow—miss me, honey?” … while Sue was imploringly trying to cover his mouth with her hands. Maybe I ran; I don’t know. Anyway, I was there, right behind her. I didn’t say anything. Purcell looked at me and went white. “Skipper …” And in the hall mirror behind Purcell, my wife met my eyes. What she saw in my face I cannot say, but in hers I saw panic terror. In the small space between Purcell and Sue, something appeared. It knocked Purcell into the mirror, and he slid down in a welter of blood and stinks and broken glass. The recoil slammed Sue into my arms. I put her by so I could watch the tattered, bleeding thing on the floor hop and hop until it settled down on the nearest warm living thing it could sense, which was Purcell’s face. I let Sue watch it and crossed to the phone and called the commandant. “Gargan,” I said, watching. “Listen, Joe, I found out that Purcell lied about where he went in that first liberty. Also why he lied.” For a few seconds I couldn’t seem to get my breath. “Send the meat wagon and an ambulance, and tell Harry to get ready for another hollowbelly … Yes, I said, one dead … Purcell, dammit. Do I have to draw you a cartoon?” I roared, and hung up. I said to Sue, who was holding onto her flat midriff, “That Purcell, I guess it did him good to get away with things under my nose. First that helpless catatonic Glenda on the way home, then you. I hope you had a real good time, honey.” It smelled bad in there, so I left. I left and walked all the way back to the Base. It took about ten hours. When I got there I went to the Medical wing for my own fever-box cure and to do some thinking about girls with guts, one way or the other. And I began to wait. They’d be opening up Mullygantz II again, and I thought I might look for a girl who’d have the … fortitude to go back with me. A girl like Amy. Or maybe Amy. The cabby wouldn’t take the fare (“Me take a nickel from Captain Gargan? Not in this life!”), and the doorman welcomed me so warmly I almost forgave Sue for moving into a place that had a doorman. And then the elevator and then Sue. You have to be away a long time, a long way, to miss someone like that, and me, I’d been farther away than anyone ought to be for too long plus six weeks. I kissed her and squeezed her until she yelled for mercy, and when I got to where I realized she was yelling we were clear back to the terrace, the whole length of the apartment away from the door. I guess I was sort of enthusiastic, but as I said … oh, who can say a thing like that and make any sense? I was glad to see my wife, and that was it. She finally got me quieted down and my uniform jacket and shoes off and a dish of ale in my fist, and there I lay in the relaxer looking at her just the way I used to when I could come home from the base every night, just the way I’d dreamed every off-duty minute since we blasted off all those months ago. Special message to anyone who’s never been off Earth: Look around you. Take a good long look around. You’re in the best place there is. A fine place. I said as much to Sue, and she laughed and said, “Even the last six weeks?” and I said, “I don’t want to insult you, baby, but yes: even those six weeks in lousy quarantine at the lousy base hospital were good, compared to being anyplace else. But it was the longest six weeks I ever spent; I’ll give you that.” I pulled her down on top of me and kissed her again. “It was longer than twice the rest of the trip.” She struggled loose and patted me on the head the way I don’t like. “Was it so bad really?” “It was bad. It was lonesome and dangerous and—and disgusting. Down right nasty of the world not to mold itself neatly into the requirement of our theories. I’m not sure I’d suggest that forgoing consumption is a form of labor. I think that’s where things like time preferences come in. I do think the effort to figure forms that capital takes and what combinations of capital equipment are appropriate (without worrying about just what that means) as well as figuring out how other forms of labor will interact with the capital (how fast should the assembly line run?) and the like are also forms of labor. I also agree that, like monetary prices, monetary wages are not the complete wage paid. Not only are there other pecuniary compensations but there’s also non-pecuniary benefits that serve to provide compensation for labor. Still, an imperfect objective measure seems preferable to an imperfect non-objective measure. At least from a practical application perspective. Down right nasty of the world not to mold itself neatly into the requirement of our theories. I’m not sure I’d suggest that forgoing consumption is a form of labor. I think that’s where things like time preferences come in.

I do think the effort to figure forms that capital takes and what combinations of capital equipment are appropriate (without worrying about just what that means) as well as figuring out how other forms of labor will interact with the capital (how fast should the assembly line run?) and the like are also forms of labor. I also agree that, like monetary prices, monetary wages are not the complete wage paid. Not only are there other pecuniary compensations but there’s also non-pecuniary benefits that serve to provide compensation for labor. Still, an imperfect objective measure seems preferable to an imperfect non-objective measure. At least from a practical application perspective. Generally speaking it is a fool’s game to attempt to assign a “numeric” value to something with “philosophical” background. When attempting to determine the market value of something, one must, as much as possible, try to figure out precisely what values are being exchanged. In the case of labor it can be quite confusing. In most white collar settings it can be intensely confusing. One, I go with the assumption that any time money changes hands there is at least the assumption that there is at least percieved value being returned. Also, we have the observation that people will throw money at all kinds of things. As much as it may be difficult for me and you to understand the value being returned when someone goes to a prostitute and asks the prostitute to tie him up and beat him, for that particular customer, there is value being returned. Now, in the white collar world, I can’t help but notice the following — in a given two week period sometimes well in excess of several thousand dollars changes hands between one individual who apparently is in the market not to be tied up and beaten, but rather to watch (or just “be aware”) that the other individual is sitting in a cubicle at certain hours of the day and staring at a computer. This blows my mind. Now, generally speaking as a SIDE effect of thte 2nd indivdual sitting in the cubible, enough revenue is generated to pay the money that is changing hands, but, after having watched this behavior for a number of years, I am FIRMLY convinced that the PRIMARY exchange is several thousand dollars for sitting in the cubicle at certain defined times. What the “inherent” value of that labor might be I have absolutely no idea, but some of the bids on it blow my mind. Also, we have the observation that people will throw money at all kinds of things. As much as it may be difficult for me and you to understand the value being returned when someone goes to a prostitute and asks the prostitute to tie him up and beat him, for that particular customer, there is value being returned. Now, in the white collar world, I can’t help but notice the following — in a given two week period sometimes well in excess of several thousand dollars changes hands between one individual who apparently is in the market not to be tied up and beaten, but rather to watch (or just “be aware”) that the other individual is sitting in a cubicle at certain hours of the day and staring at a computer. This blows my mind. Now, generally speaking as a SIDE effect of thte 2nd indivdual sitting in the cubible, enough revenue is generated to pay the money that is changing hands, but, after having watched this behavior for a number of years, I am FIRMLY convinced that the PRIMARY exchange is several thousand dollars for sitting in the cubicle at certain defined times. Plus you can always add in the non-objective stuff if you are personally involved in the trade. Some of the “non-objective” things can be reduced to a monetary value if you try hard enough. For instance the value of experience can be estimated from the increased wage experienced people gain. Thus the first year pilot recieves his wage and the possibility of earning more in subsequent years. I think that needs a bit of elaboration. Just how is not consuming a form a labor? I certainly agree that one labors in producing some capital, but if all capital requires labor then capital is not productive. I don’t agree with that proposition. I see some of the general productivity as attributable to capital and not labor. Perhaps you mean something different. Something like I work 40 hours and make $1000. I only consume $750. After three weeks I could then not work and still maintain the same life style. That’s true but I could just work 30 hours a week and be in the exact same condition with respect to total hours worked and amount consumed. I still forgo consuming $1000 a week and only consume $750 a week. Since I could be consuming the $1000 I must be forgoing $250 a week in consumption. To some extent that’s true. I don’t think we can actually get to a total monetary, or objective, wage labor price though with out actually having explicit prices for the various components. For instance, we’d need to be able to identify the marginal valuation of the market clearly first year pilot to get the market price for that part of the compensation. We can apporximate that price, and economists and price analysts do that stuff. But we are then using a non-objective metric which runs into the same problems that exist for the LTV. I think things like health benefits, contributions to retirement funds and the like are quite suitible to the effort you suggest. I start out by asking “What are we talking about, generally, when we talk about labor? How is it different from other activities, like play, sleep, and so on?” One of the characteristics of labor for most people — labor in the economic sense — is that they’re doing something they wouldn’t otherwise do in order to get something they want (other than the experience of labor itself). In this it differs from work done for enjoyment, the hell of it, charity, a noble purpose, and the like. The reason the latter does not enter into economic calculations much is that if people will do something without being given anything in exchange, there’s no reason to pay them. (There are exceptions for those with unusual talents, who can do what they like and still get paid for it.

“Capitalist private property relies not on the labour of the
proprietor, as petty commodity production does, but on the
socialized labour of the workers.”
– Meghnad Desai

Although foregoing consumption can accompany productive work as a method for the accumulation of value, the actual act of saving value by abstaining from consumption is not itself an activity of labor. Doing without is not a form of productive labor. Most of us are not so lucky.) But the things people labor at are not always work in the primitive sense of changing the state of the world. Sometimes one must labor to keep the world _from_ changing in an undesirable manner, as when one sits around watching a fire or a nuclear plant. Similarly, one may be paid for being on call, as firemen, policemen, and emergency medical technicians are. So positive activity is not necessarily a mark of labor. But in all the cases we name, laborers are giving up a certain amount of their time, that is, their lives, to do something they wouldn’t otherwise do, in order to get money or some other reward. Now, let us assume for a moment that everyone must labor for their income, that they get paid in money, they would enjoy spending it on various goods, and that they have some choice about what they do. Someone who, instead of spending all their money on something they like, instead saves some of it, is in effect giving up time _and_ the possible enjoyments of subsequent consumption in order to accumulate those savings. The savings are in effect a sort of stored time or, as I think Marx put it, “frozen labor”. Except, of course, it isn’t necessarily frozen — it can do things, such as undergo transformation into tools, which amplify the productive powers of labor, or, just kept around, can reduce threats and the pain of fearing threats, confer social power, and the like. In other words, I see labor as a kind of category of suffering which is exchanged for wealth which may be enjoyed and consumed or turned into savings including capital (tools); for the accumulation of capital to be effective, the capitalist-laborer must _continue_ to suffer denied enjoyment of the capital (or it will disappear). All labor, in my view, is a foregoing of the enjoyment of working one’s will and obtaining one’s desires, a giving-up of a piece of one’s life, usually in the hope of securing and enhancing the remainder. (Of course, I’m not talking about the general historical and current practice of capitalism here, where many other considerations come into play, especially inheritance and other forms of luck, and political power; nor of those who have the good fortune to find enjoyment in accumulation and capital manipulation themselves, apart from anything they produce.) I agree that consuming capital will result in it’s consumption. Put the capital itself is productive and even if one ceases adding to the principle, the very nature of the growth process implies that at some point all the original contributions could be withdrawn while still leaving capital that will continue to grow. If that resulting amount of capital is sufficient to satisfy a person’s wants and still add to the base of capital then, while there is clearly a case where one is not consuming all they could but they are also not really doing any labor. For instance, if one were able to amass $10 billion from the returns from labor accumulated capital at 1% you could have $100 million a year. It’s pretty easy to get that 1% return so I don’t think we would say there’s much labor involved. The question I have is, if the person doesn’t consume all that $100 million, where is the labor component of the unconsumed residual? I think if we scale down the situation the logic still holds but now we have the problem of separating out the contribution to capital from capital and the contribution to capital from labor. There still remains the fact that the contribution to capital represents a condition of forgone consumption but labor is not the only source. I realize this is not the marxist perspective. At it’s core thought the marxist perspective assumes the aristilian (I think) assumption that money (capital) is infertile so cannot be productive; only labor can be productive. I don’t agree with that proposition. If I’m wrong, then forgone consumption is always and everywhere the result of labor. If I’m not wrong then that claim is not true. I think the main problem with Marx’s LTV is that it says that providing capital does not create value, but is neccesary to create value. This appears to be a logical contradiction, like saying that water is not part of the value of a cake, but you need it to make the cake. I’m saying that in the primitive case foregoing consumption to accumulate savings of any kind _is_ labor. “They also serve who only stand and wait.” The case of the fellow with ten billion is somewhat different. I would guess that such large stores of wealth attract political power, so that the burden of suffering foregone consumption is shifted on to others less powerful. Value equivelent to the value the original contributions had at the time of investment could be withdrawn and still do this yes. In fact it usaully is if you accumulate for long enough. But at some point (assuming this isn’t the inheritance of Captain Morgan’s or Cortez’s relatives) somebody worked to earn the money. That’s what created the potential consumption that was foregone. This in turn created more potential consumption that was again foregone etc. The labour is in the past but it still existes as saved value. There need not be any. The labour is _past_ labour. In the earning of the original “seed money”. I see how you might think that but in disagree. Consider the things you get payment for. Land rent is (hopefully) payment for mixing your labour with land. Interest is payment for contributing use of economic reserves for a time. These reserves must originally have be created by labour. Profits (not including interest) are rewards for using your economic reserves to cover potential shortfalls in value creation. Since both profit and interest require economic reserves they cannot create the original reserves. Only labour can do that. I think it is. The problem with Marxist theory is that it assumes that it is the result of _current_ labour, which may not be the case. The original labour may have been centuries ago, but like the original human it’s children live on. These children are interest and profit which are productive. The that production is however the result of the original labour. Foregone consumption is always and everywhere the result of labour often acting through the medium of interest and profit. I hope that’s clear. And also one has to decide, continously, to forego the consumption, and literally suffer the consequences (again, in the primitive case). One decides to eat rice and beans instead of steak, to walk instead of ride, to wear the old coat for another year. One’s savings sit under the floorboards, or with the moneylender earning interest, or are invested in a productive enterprise which one is trying to maintain and expand; they could be taken out at any time and spent on the goods which one had hitherto foregone. I agree that’s also a problem. I’m not sure how you distinguish the “primitive case” from others. What about the guy who decides to eat steak at Sizzler instead of Le Circ (or whatever expensive resturant is hot right now)? Or who buys an off the rack coat each year instead of Armani? Or washes his own mercedes (the sign according to an old joke of a poor winemaker in France)? I mean there’s usaully _something_ people could do with money to make their lives better. Where is the borderline in your opinion? Slave labor is suffering. Excessive and disproportionate work, under another’s authority and direction, is a cause of human suffering. Unnecessary and unreasonable work, needless and senseless work, are a source of so much human suffering. Imagine life without the ability to engage in productive and purposeful labor, without the ability to be employed in creative and worthwhile labor. The problem with work is that we are not free to labor as needed, and most of us must get permission to engage in work. This is because we need money in order to have access to what we need for life. In order to have a job, we are forced to work under another’s authority, and to work so much that we become tired of work, and we come to dislike work. Labor should be as enjoyable as the fruits of labor, and especially labor that has been made light by machinery, by equipment, by work associations, and by the organization of work — the division of labor. Of course, there’s the division of labor, and there’s the disintegration of labor. The fragmentation of labor is not intended to make labor an enjoyable process. The purpose of scientific management (Taylorism and Fordism) is to transform human labor into a machine-driven process of profit production. It’s all the maximization of profits; it’s not about people. Labor has been dehumanized; and there are socialists who believe that labor can be rehumanized, even with industrialization. The first step, and the most important step, to the humanization of labor is the democratization of all industry. But, the capitalist consumes capital, enjoys capital, as the source if their dividend income. The capitalists are mot denying themselves. They are not suffering; they are not sacrificing themselves; they are not foregoing the consumption of wealth, and the pleasures of leisure. In fact, they live off the value-creating labors of so many other human beings. But labor ought to be the direct enjoyment of effectively occupying and operating one’s will, of actively performing one’s will. Personal and practical industry is enjoyable, or it can be enjoyable, if it is voluntary and attentive, loving and caring, free and equal. Labor is life; life is labor. Labor is not giving up the pleasure of life; labor is one of life’s good pleasures. Labor per se is beautiful and pleasing, good and virtuous, wholesome and admirable. Labor is also sociable. Labor, under the rule of capital, is miserable and grievous; but labor does not have to be this way. Capitalism is the process and the practice of labor’s immiserization and impoverishment. In my opinion, labor is a human need. It is not just an economic need for subsistence and survival; it is also an existential need, a spiritual need. Productive work is also an ethical need, because every normal human being has a sense of responsibility to contribute to the welfare of the community, as well as providing for their own personal well-being. It is amazing that otherwise intelligent people can so easily play down — even put down — the value of labor in the creation of value, in the production of goods of value.
Besides, business is a private pursuit; and so, for that very reason, there is no accounting, there can be no reckoning, as to how much the proprietor’s measure of labor has to do with the proprietor’s measure of property. The petty proprietor, more often than not, does do productive labor; and yet, as a business proprietor whatever value is not consumed as a personal good is consumed as a capital good, whatever value is not used as an individual consumer good is consumed as an industrial investment. In other words, saving is not foregoing consumption, if it is remembered that acquisition and accumulation are also forms of consumption. There is no suffering foregone consumption in the part of super-wealthy proprietors, who do not labor to produce the wealth which they consume and enjoy in their life of luxury and leisure. The producers produce the value which the proprietors accumulate, economize, invest, and contribute.

“Marx was not justified, even in terms of his own theory, in
his prediction that communism would follow capitalism. Yet
communism, as described, could still be an overwhelmingly
attractive image of how society might be organized. So
should we sign up to the ideal (worrying about how we might
get from here to there later)? Alternatively, we might
question whether it really is a coherent ideal after all.”
– Jonathan Wolff

There are always going to be some jobs and some labor that cannot be made enjoyable. Fixing a stopped up toilet, for example. Given that the thing may literally be full of crap, there is no way that job will be enjoyable. Ditto, for cleaning out chicken houses, stables, etc. Other forms of work will be miserable due to working conditions beyond human control. Example, trains run all the time. And, boxcars have to be switched, spotted on sidings, picked up, etc. That has to take place in all types of weather, rain, snow, cold, heat, etc. The process cannot be automated. A man has to be on the ground, giving signals to the engineer, coupling and uncoupling cars, hooking up air hoses, setting hand brakes, etc. In some weather, it can be just miserable, due to the weather conditions. A lot of chemical plant and refinery work is the same. A postman has to make rounds in snow, rain, cold, heat, and all types of miserable weather. How the hell are you going to make being out in the cold or in 100 degree heat enjoyable? How are you going to make fixing a stopped up crapper enjoyable? There should be no unnecessary misery attached to work, but it would be worse under a socialist system, since you would not even have the option of quitting. Your job would likely be assigned by a bureaucrat or a worker’s council, or some other authority from whom there would be no effective appeal. Besides, people would still have to work at something, or else everyone would starve. And, some of that work will be inherently unpleasant. Construction work is necessary, but not fun in the heat of August. The Demon Lover was my Second, name of Purcell. Purcell was one of those guys who just has to go around making like a bull moose in fly-time, bellowing at the moon and banging his antlers against the rocks. He’d been to the house a couple or three times and said things about Sue that were so appreciative that I had to tell him to knock it off or he’d collect a punch in the mouth. Sue had liked him, though; well, Sue was always that way, always going a bit out of her way to get upwind of an animal like that. And I guess I’m one of ‘em myself; anyway, it was me she married. I said, “I’m afraid ol’ Purcell’s either a blowhard or he was just out of character when we rounded up the crew and brought ‘em all back. We found ‘em in honky-tonks and strip joints; we found ‘em in the buzzoms of their families behaving like normal family men do after a long trip; but Purcell, we found him at the King George Hotel”—I emphasized with a forefinger—”alone by himself and fast asleep, where he tells us he went as soon as he got earthside. Said he wanted a soak in a hot tub and twenty-four hours sleep in a real 1-G bed with sheets. How’s that for a sailor ashore on his first leave?” She’d gotten up to get me more ale. “I haven’t finished this one yet!” I said. She said “Oh” and sat down again. “You were going to tell me about the trip.” “I was? Oh, all right, I was. But listen carefully, because this is one trip I’m going to forget as fast as I can, and I’m not going to do it again, even in my head.” Like I said, she was sick. Her body temperature was wildly erratic, going from 102 all the way down to 96 and back up again. She was just this side of breakdown and must have been like that for weeks, slipping across the line for minutes at a time, hauling herself back for a moment or two, then sliding across again. But she knew Glenda was helpless, though physically in perfect shape, and she knew that even automatic machinery has to be watched. She not only dragged herself around keeping ink in the recording pens and new charts when the seismo’s and hygro’s and airsonde recorders needed them, but she kept Glenda fed; more than that, she fed herself. She fed herself close to fifteen thousand calories a day. And she was forty pounds underweight. The primate was galloping for the woods on its stumpy little legs with its long arms up over its head—even then Clement thought it was funny. Then something else went for him in the long grass and he took a big leap out of its way. He later wrote very careful notes on this thing. It was wet and it was nasty and it stunk beyond words. He said you could search your memory long afterwards and locate separate smells in that overall stench the way you can with the instruments of an orchestra. There was butyl mercaptan and rotten celery, excrement, formic acid, decayed meat, and that certain smell which is like the taste of some brasses. The burn on his cheek smelt like hydrochloric acid at work on a hydrocarbon; just what it was. The thing was irregularly spherical or ovoid, but soft and squashy. Fluids of various kinds oozed from it here and there—colorless and watery, clotted yellow like soft-boiled eggs, and blood. It bled more than anything ought to that needs blood; it bled in gouts from openings at random, and it bled cutaneously, droplets forming on its surface like the sweat on a glass of ice water. Cutaneously, did I say? That’s not what Clement reported. It looked skinless—flayed was the word he used. Much of its surface was striated muscle fiber, apparently unprotected. In two places that he could see was naked brown tissue like liver, drooling and dripping excretions of its own. And this thing, roughly a foot and a half by two feet and weighing maybe thirty pounds, was flopping and hopping in a spastic fashion, not caring which side was up (if it had an up) but always moving toward him. Clement blew sharply out of his nostrils and stepped back and to one side—a good long step, with the agony of his scalded cheek to remind him that wherever the thing had come from, it was high up, and he didn’t want it taking off like that again. Even when there is satisfaction when the job is done, the misery of the weather will still be there. Non sequitur and irrelevent to book. Not at the time the decision to consume or invest is made it isn’t. Capital goods are only consumed over time as they are used to produce consumer goods. No using capital to produce is. Saving to produce it isn’t. Then how can it be said to be “serving”? Serving who? Non sequitur. Just because you claim that someone didn’t labour to produce wealth doesn’t mean they don’t forego consumption to invest it. Why yes they do. Specifically the proprietors produce that value rather than others. Well said, all work is pleasure when it is your work. I would only take issue with The fragmentation of labor is not intended to make labor an I would describe the problem as commodification of labor, and therefore, ownership is not really the issue. It is the balance between work and availabilty of labor. She was the weirdest sight you ever saw, her face full like a fat person’s but her abdomen, from the lower ribs to the pubes, collapsed almost against her spine. You’d never have believed an organism could require so much food—not, that is, until you saw her eat. She’d rigged up a chopper out of the lab equipment because she actually couldn’t wait to chew her food. She just dumped everything and anything edible into that gadget and propped her chin on the edge of the table by the outlet and packed that garbage into her open mouth with both hands. If she could have slept it would have been easier, but hunger would wake her after twenty minutes or so and back she’d go, chop and cram, guzzle and swill. If Glenda had been able to help—but there she was, she did it all herself, and when we got the whole story straight we found she’d been at it for nearly three weeks. In another three weeks they’d have been close to the end of their stores, enough for five people for anyway another couple of months. We had a portable hypno in the first-aid kit on the scout, and we slapped it to Glenda Spooner with a reassurance tape and a normal sleep command and just put her to bed with it. We bedded Amy down too, though she got a bit hysterical until we could make her understand through that fog of delirium that one of us would stand by every minute with premasticated rations. Once she understood that she slept like a corpse, but such a corpse you never want to see, lying there eating. It was a lot of work all at once, and when we had it done Purcell wiped his face and said, “Five-nines Earth Normal, hah. No malignant virus or bacterium. No toxic plants or fungi. Come to Mullygantz II, land of happiness and health.” “Nobody’s used that big fat no,” I reminded him. “The reports only say there’s nothing bad here that we know about or can test for. My God, the best brains in the world used to kill AB patients by transfusing type O blood. Heaven help us the day we think we know everything that goes on in the universe.” We didn’t get the whole story then; rather, it was all there but not in a comprehensible order. The key to it all was Amy Segal’s personal log, which she called a “diary” and kept in hen tracks called shorthand, which took three historians and a philologist a week to decode after we returned to Earth. It was the diary that fleshed the thing out for us, told us about these people and their guts and how they exploded all over each other. So I’ll tell it, not the way we got it, but the way it happened. To begin with, it was a good team. Clement was a good head, one of those relaxed guys who always listens to other people talking. He could get a fantastic amount of work out of a team and out of himself too, and it never showed. His kind of drive is sort of a secret weapon. Glenda Spooner and Amy Segal were wild about him in a warm, respectful way that never interfered with the work. I’d guess that Glenda was more worshipful about it, or at least, with her it showed more. Amy was the little mouse with the big eyes that gets happier and stays just as quiet when her grand passion walks into the room, except maybe she works a little harder so he’ll be pleased. Clement was bed-friends with both of them, which is the way things usually arrange themselves when there’s an odd number of singles on a team. It’s expected of them, and the wise exec keeps it going that way and plays no favorites, at least till the job’s done. The Flents, Katherine and Joe, were married, and had been for quite a while before they went Outside. His specialty was geology and mineralogy, and she was a chemist, and just as their sciences supplemented each other so did their egos. One of Amy’s early “diary” entries says they knew each other so well they were one step away from telepathy; they’d work side by side for hours swapping information with grunts and eyebrows. Just what kicked over all this stability it’s hard to say. It wasn’t a fine balance; you’d think from the look of things that the arrangement could stand a lot of bumps and friction. Probably it was an unlucky combination of small things all harmless in themselves but having a critical-mass characteristic that nobody knew about. Maybe it was Clement’s sick spell that triggered it; maybe the Flents suddenly went into one of those oh-God-what-did-I-ever-see-in-you phases that come over married people who are never separated; maybe it was Amy’s sudden crazy yen for Joe Flent and her confusion over it. Probably the worst thing of all was that Joe Flent might have sensed how she felt and caught fire too. I don’t know. I guess, like I said, that they all happened at once. Clement getting sick like that. He was out after bio specimens and spotted a primate. They’re fairly rare on Mullygantz II, big ugly devils maybe five feet tall but so fat they outweigh a man two to one. They’re mottled pink and gray, and hairless, and they have a face that looks like an angry gorilla when it’s relaxed and a ridiculous row of little pointed teeth instead of fangs. They get around pretty good in the trees, but they’re easy to outrun on the ground because they never learned to use their arms and knuckles like the great apes but waddle over the ground with their arms held up in the air to get them out of the way. It fools you. They look so damn silly that you forget they might be dangerous. So anyway, Clement surprised one on the ground and had it headed for the open fields before it knew what was happening. He ran it to a standstill, just by getting between it and the trees and then approaching it. The primate did all the running; Clement just maneuvered it until it was totally pooped and squatted down to wait its doom. Actually all the doom it would have gotten from Clement was to get stunned, hypoed, examined, and turned loose, but of course it had no way of knowing that. It just sat there in the grass looking stupid and ludicrous and harmless in an ugly sort of way, and when Clement put out his hand it didn’t move, and when he patted it on the neck it just trembled. He was slowly withdrawing his hand to get his stun gun out when he said something or laughed—anyway, made a sound, and the thing bit him. Those little bitty teeth weren’t what they seemed. The gums are retractile and the teeth are really not teeth at all but serrated bone with all those little needles slanting inward like a shark’s. The jaw muscles are pretty flabby, fortunately, or he’d have lost an elbow, but all the same, it was a bad bite. Clement couldn’t get loose, and he couldn’t reach around himself to get to the stun gun, so he drew his flame pistol, thumbed it around to “low”, and scorched the primate’s throat with it. That was Clement, never wanting to do any more damage than he had to. The primate opened its mouth to protect its throat and Clement got free. He jumped back and twisted his foot and fell, and something burned him on the side of the face like a lick of hellfire. He scrabbled back out of the way and got to his feet. Dot com boom babies had fun. Nah. People do all kinds of things for “pleasure” that involve heat, cold, bad smells. Job satisfaction arises (studies show) from control. Stress is hgh for production workers, not execs. Repetition also is unpleasant. All can be fixed by a balance of workers to work. If this were true, I would enjoy cleaning my house, which is pure vernacular production. But I don’t. Then why don’t workers fix it? Because the costs of organising production to make “labor … as enjoyable as the fruits of labor” is prohibitively high. It is expensive to retrain people every time they get tired of doing their job. It is even more expensive for everyone to manage their own workplaces. Few people know how to run a business.

In the face of economic crisis and cries for help from those affected by it, this program offers hope to those who may be losing hope or have lost hope all together due to financial difficulties and homelessness. “It never occurred to me that the [speed cameras] were also handy tools for wreaking revenge on enemies and authority figures. That was clearly a lapse of imagination on my part.” Aside from the pranking itself, a secondary effect may be to diminish trust in the legitimacy of valid tickets (particularly since it was reported some perpetrators used similar-looking cars to the victim’s). The victim will receive a $40 ticket in the mail weeks later. It works like this; each car has a GPS unit. Each car has a speed-limiting unit, which contains a map of the roads in the UK and their speed limits and since GPS is there, knows where the car is, and prevents the car going faster than the speed limit. Good quality and access to the data collected would help to address this (e.g., are the photos provided with the ticket? High or low res? Color or B&W? etc…) as better data should make it easier to prove there was fraud. But on whom does the burden of proof lie? Maryland Students Use Speed Cameras for Revenge Students in Montgomery County, Maryland use fake license plates to send speed camera tickets to enemies. Maryland plate, photo by Amy the Nurse/FlickrHigh school students in Maryland are using speed cameras as a tool to fine innocent drivers in a game, according to the Montgomery County Sentinel newspaper. Because photo enforcement devices will automatically mail out a ticket to any registered vehicle owner based solely on a photograph of a license plate, any driver could receive a ticket if someone else creates a duplicate of his license plate and drives quickly past a speed camera. The private companies that mail out the tickets often do not bother to verify whether vehicle registration information for the accused vehicle matches the photographed vehicle. Arks of Safe Haven is intended to provide a Safe Haven for all who enter and answer the prayers of those in need as well as provide spiritual support, comfort and hope in the midst of the Great Tribulation. According to the Sentinel, students at Richard Montgomery High School have also participated, although Montgomery County officials deny having seen any evidence of faked speed camera tickets. We have identified a vulnerability in the Internet Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) used to issue digital certificates for secure websites. As a proof of concept we executed a practical attack scenario and successfully created a rogue Certification Authority (CA) certificate trusted by all common web browsers. Those individuals who have been affected by recent economic downfalls can register on the message board, and connect with others who have also registered and who are able to offer their help and assistance. Arks of Safe Haven does not charge for their services or accept monetary donations, but instead provides an “Ark of Safe Haven” and encourages acts of kindness towards those in need whether it is providing employment, or shelter in the form of an extra bedroom, unused property or a work for room and board agreement and also tangible items such as food, water, diapers, formula, clothing, & many other personal Items. The assistance of Arks of Safe Haven is available to all who are in need, regardless of race, creed, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. France Telecom observed today that 3 major underwater cables were cut: Sea Me We 4 at 7:28am, Sea Me We3 at 7:33am and FLAG at 8:06am. The causes of the cut, which is located in the Mediterranean between Sicily and Tunisia, on sections linking Sicily to Egypt, remain unclear. Most of the B to B traffic between Europe and Asia is rerouted through the USA. Traffic from Europe to Algeria and Tunisia is not affected, but traffic from Europe to the Near East and Asia is interrupted to a greater or lesser extent (see country list below). Part of the internet traffic towards Reunion is affected as well as 50% towards Jordan. A first appraisal at 7:44 am UTC gave an estimate of the following impact on the voice traffic (in percentage of out-of-service capacity).France Telecom immediately alerted one of the two maintenance boats based in the Mediterranean area, the Raymond Croze. This France Telecom Marine cable ship based at Seyne-sur-Mer has received its mobilization order early this afternoon and will cast off tonight at 3:00 am with 20 kilometers spare cable on board. It should be on location on Monday morning for a relief mission. Priority will be given to the recovery of the Sea Me We4 cable, then on the Sea Me We3. By December 25th, Sea Me We4 could be operating. By December 31st, the situation should be back to normal. With foreclosures and homelessness numbers skyrocketing, the need for a place to connect with others who are ready and willing to help is in desperate need. This unique venture connects these people via an extensive network and online message board forum, that is moderated personally by five ministers who will have a hand in making these connections happen. In 2007, Ireland bought two Israeli Orbiter UAV systems, for $550,000 each. They had lost two of their six UAVs in Chad, where a battalion of Irish peacekeepers are operating. The second one UAV casualty apparently tried to fly back to Ireland, after it lost its communications link with the operator. The Orbiter is programmed to head back to the operator if it loses its comm link. But this Orbiter apparently still had a GPS location back in Ireland in its memory, and headed there. Since Ireland is 5,000 kilometers from Chad, the Orbiter ran out of juice and landed about 4,800 kilometers short of its goal. A British Government report, funded by money taken through tax, argues for speed limiting devices on cars. Argues it will reduce car accidents with injuries by 29%. First questions; 29% of what? what’s the period which is being used to compare against? is it representative? does it just include cars, or lorries? does it include all roads, everywhere, or just (say) cities? what about accidents with fatalities? what about the additional accidents which will happen now, where people previously managed to escape by accelerating out of danger? how do they figure that accidents would be reduced anyway? I’m kinda wondering if they just took existing car accident statistics (how accurate are they? on what basis are they calculated?), looked at those accidents which happened where speeding was involved, and applied some sort of reducing factor they constructed. The designers were trying to provide some appropriate default behavior in case the UAV lost contact with its operator. This is good, and may not have been a big deal in Israel, because most of its UAVs are operated near its borders. No one thought about the possibility of using the UAV far outside a country’s borders. It should have recorded the original operator’s location in order to fly back to that location. What about accidents which would have happened anyway, even if they cars had been doing the local speed limit? presumably this was accounted for in their reducing factor? if so, by how much? how do you decide what reduction to use? According to one news article, students are printing up fake license plates specifically in order to speed past speedcams. The person whose plate was printed then gets a bill for the fine. However, the one story on it that I saw is not convincing. All of the reports of its occurrences seem to come from one unnamed source. One of the quotes may be correct regardless, though: “It will cause potential problems for the Speed Camera Program in terms of the confidence in it.” “I’ve objected to the robotic menaces primarily on the grounds that they were fallible revenue machines for the state rather than legitimate means of protecting life and limb,” said Examiner.com’s J.D. Tucille. In the UK, this is known as number plate cloning, where thieves will find the license information of a vehicle similar in appearance to the one they wish to drive. They will use that information to purchase a real license plate from a private vendor using the other vehicle’s numbers. This allows the “cloned” vehicle to avoid all automated punishment systems:
- Saudi Arabia: 55%
- Djibouti: 71%
- Egypt: 52%
- United Arab Emirates: 68%
- India: 82%
- Lebanon: 16%
- Malaysia: 42%
- Maldives: 100%
- Pakistan: 51%
- Qatar: 73%
- Syria: 36%
- Taiwan: 39%
- Yemen: 38%
- Zambia: 62%
According to the Sentinel, two Rockville, Maryland high schools call their version of cloning the “speed camera pimping game.” A speed camera is located out in front of Wootton High School, providing a convenient location for generating the false tickets. Instead of purchasing license plates, students have ready access to laser printers that can create duplicate license plates using glossy paper using readily available fonts. For example, the state name of “Maryland” appears on plates in a font similar to Garamond Number 5 Swash Italic. Once the camera flashes, the driver can quickly pull over and remove the fake paper plate. First thoughts; you know as well as I do that unit will record your journeys and that data will be available, by law, to the State, and that your car, sooner or later, will be legally obliged to carry that unit. There’s no reason it wouldn’t work, as long as the speedcams don’t also get pictures of the driver (as they do in England). All because powers are granted to a State by a democratic process does not mean the State will use them democratically. What about our right of privacy? of simply being left alone? Here’s another thought; what if there’s an emergency and you need to break the local speed limit? will there be an over-ride switch? if so, what’s to stop it being permanently turned on? will it have a time-out? what if the time-out is too short or too long? and if your unit notices that you are persistently breaking the local speed limit, what’s it going to do? will it report you to the police? will, next time you car is serviced, the record of all your journeys be checked for breaking the speed limit and then you’ll be charged? This certificate allows us to impersonate any website on the Internet, including banking and e-commerce sites secured using the HTTPS protocol.

Westminster Abbey. Dead March. Enter the Funeral of King Henry the Fifth, attended on by Dukes of Bedford, Regent of France; Gloucester, Protector; and Exeter, Earl of Warwick, the Bishop Of Winchester, Heralds, & Bedford Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night! Comets, importing change of times and states, Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky, And with them scourge the bad revolting stars That have consented unto Henry’s death! King Henry the Fifth, too famous to live long! England ne’er lost a king of so much worth. Gloucester England ne’er had a king until his time. Virtue he had, deserving to command: His brandish’d sword did blind men with his beams: His arms spread wider than a dragon’s wings; His sparking eyes, replete with wrathful fire, More dazzled and drove back his enemies Than mid-day sun fierce bent against their faces. What should I say’ his deeds exceed all speech: He ne’er lift up his hand but conquered. Exeter We mourn in black: why mourn we not in blood’ Henry is dead and never shall revive: Upon a wooden coffin we attend, And death’s dishonourable victory We with our stately presence glorify, Like captives bound to a triumphant car. What! shall we curse the planets of mishap That plotted thus our glory’s overthrow’ Or shall we think the subtle-witted French Conjurers and sorcerers, that afraid of him By magic verses have contrived his end’ Bishop Of Winchester He was a king bless’d of the King of kings. Unto the French the dreadful judgement-day So dreadful will not be as was his sight. The battles of the Lord of hosts he fought: The church’s prayers made him so prosperous. Gloucester The church! where is it’ Had not churchmen pray’d, His thread of life had not so soon decay’d: None do you like but an effeminate prince, Whom, like a school-boy, you may over-awe. Bishop Of Winchester Gloucester, whate’er we like, thou art protector And lookest to command the prince and realm. Thy wife is proud; she holdeth thee in awe, More than God or religious churchmen may. Gloucester Name not religion, for thou lovest the flesh, And ne’er throughout the year to church thou go’st Except it be to pray against thy foes. Bedford Cease, cease these jars and rest your minds in peace: Let’s to the altar: heralds, wait on us: Instead of gold, we’ll offer up our arms: Since arms avail not now that Henry’s dead. Posterity, await for wretched years, When at their mothers’ moist eyes babes shall suck, Our isle be made a nourish of salt tears, And none but women left to wail the dead. Henry the Fifth, thy ghost I invocate: Prosper this realm, keep it from civil broils, Combat with adverse planets in the heavens! A far more glorious star thy soul will make Than Julius Caesar or bright’ Enter a Messenger Messenger My honourable lords, health to you all! Sad tidings bring I to you out of France, Of loss, of slaughter and discomfiture: Guienne, Champagne, Rheims, Orleans, Paris, Guysors, Poictiers, are all quite lost. Bedford What say’st thou, man, before dead Henry’s corse’ Speak softly, or the loss of those great towns Will make him burst his lead and rise from death. Gloucester Is Paris lost’ is Rouen yielded up’ If Henry were recall’d to life again, These news would cause him once more yield the ghost. Exeter How were they lost’ what treachery was used’ Messenger No treachery; but want of men and money. Amongst the soldiers this is muttered, That here you maintain several factions, And whilst a field should be dispatch’d and fought, You are disputing of your generals: One would have lingering wars with little cost; Another would fly swift, but wanteth wings; A third thinks, without expense at all, By guileful fair words peace may be obtain’d. Awake, awake, English nobility! Let not sloth dim your horrors new-begot: Cropp’d are the flower-de-luces in your arms; Of England’s coat one half is cut away. Exeter Were our tears wanting to this funeral, These tidings would call forth their flowing tides. Bedford Me they concern; Regent I am of France. Give me my steeled coat. I’ll fight for France. Away with these disgraceful wailing robes! Wounds will I lend the French instead of eyes, To weep their intermissive miseries. Enter to them another Messenger Messenger Lords, view these letters full of bad mischance. France is revolted from the English quite, Except some petty towns of no import: The Dauphin Charles is crowned king of Rheims; The Bastard of Orleans with him is join’d; Reignier, Duke of Anjou, doth take his part; The Duke of Alencon flieth to his side. Exeter The Dauphin crowned king! all fly to him! O, whither shall we fly from this reproach’ Gloucester We will not fly, but to our enemies’ throats. Bedford, if thou be slack, I’ll fight it out. Bedford Gloucester, why doubt’st thou of my forwardness’ An army have I muster’d in my thoughts, Wherewith already France is overrun. Enter another Messenger Messenger My gracious lords, to add to your laments, Wherewith you now bedew King Henry’s hearse, I must inform you of a dismal fight Betwixt the stout Lord Talbot and the French. Bishop Of Winchester What! wherein Talbot overcame’ is’t so’ Messenger O, no; wherein Lord Talbot was o’erthrown: The circumstance I’ll tell you more at large. The tenth of August last this dreadful lord, Retiring from the siege of Orleans, Having full scarce six thousand in his troop. By three and twenty thousand of the French Was round encompassed and set upon. No leisure had he to enrank his men; He wanted pikes to set before his archers; Instead whereof sharp stakes pluck’d out of hedges They pitched in the ground confusedly, To keep the horsemen off from breaking in. More than three hours the fight continued; Where valiant Talbot above human thought Enacted wonders with his sword and lance: Hundreds he sent to hell, and none durst stand him; Here, there, and every where, enraged he flew: The French exclaim’d, the devil was in arms; All the whole army stood agazed on him: His soldiers spying his undaunted spirit A Talbot! a Talbot! cried out amain And rush’d into the bowels of the battle. Here had the conquest fully been seal’d up, If Sir John Fastolfe had not play’d the coward: He, being in the vaward, placed behind With purpose to relieve and follow them, Cowardly fled, not having struck one stroke. Hence grew the general wreck and massacre; Enclosed were they with their enemies: A base Walloon, to win the Dauphin’s grace, Thrust Talbot with a spear into the back, Whom all France with their chief assembled strength Durst not presume to look once in the face. Bedford Is Talbot slain’ then I will slay myself, For living idly here in pomp and ease, Whilst such a worthy leader, wanting aid, Unto his dastard foemen is betray’d. Messenger O no, he lives; but is took prisoner, And Lord Scales with him and Lord Hungerford: Most of the rest slaughter’d or took likewise. Bedford His ransom there is none but I shall pay: I’ll hale the Dauphin headlong from his throne: His crown shall be the ransom of my friend; Four of their lords I’ll change for one of ours. Farewell, my masters; to my task will I; Bonfires in France forthwith I am to make, To keep our great Saint George’s feast withal: Ten thousand soldiers with me I will take, Whose bloody deeds shall make all Europe quake. Messenger So you had need; for Orleans is besieged; The English army is grown weak and faint: The Earl of Salisbury craveth supply, And hardly keeps his men from mutiny, Since they, so few, watch such a multitude. Exeter Remember, lords, your oaths to Henry sworn, Either to quell the Dauphin utterly, Or bring him in obedience to your yoke. Bedford I do remember it; and here take my leave, To go about my preparation. Exit Gloucester I’ll to the Tower with all the haste I can, To view the artillery and munition; And then I will proclaim young Henry king. Exit Exeter To Eltham will I, where the young king is, Being ordain’d his special governor, And for his safety there I’ll best devise. Exit Bishop Of Winchester Each hath his place and function to attend: I am left out; for me nothing remains. But long I will not be Jack out of office: The king from Eltham I intend to steal And sit at chiefest stern of public weal.