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Erowid is a small not for profit organization dedicated to studying and providing information about humanity's never-ending search for meaning and spirit. We recognize that every individual is on their own path and that no single path is best, or even functional, for all. History shows us that regardless of social or legal controls, people will follow their own individual paths in this search for meaning. It is extremely important for information to be freely available about different techniques, practices, methods, and lifestyles, whether traditional or unconventional.ne area in which misinformation is especially dangerous is the use of mind-altering substances. Despite legal and social restrictions placed on individuals, we believe that there are genuine spiritual (entheogenic) properties to many mind-altering substances. In this area, one of our goals is the spread of accurate information. We believe that the risks and dangers only increase if information isn't available about traditional uses, methods of use, experiences, health effects, and current research.
In the long run, we are primarily interested in the use of entheogens as a potential tool for spiritual and personal growth. We believe that the true measure of the value of entheogens lies in their positive effects on the daily lives of individuals and communities. Entheogens can be powerful tools, but if not used carefully, wisely, and with respect they can also cause both physical and mental harm. We strongly recommend that any entheogen use be balanced with ongoing work on your own personal/spiritual path. Be careful.
And from their Arts & Sciences page:
Work like you don't need the money.
Love like you've never been hurt.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Daniel Sarewitz and Roger Pielke Jr. at the Atlantic Monthly - Breaking the Global-Warming Gridlock: Angus called this a "must read". I agree. [latte]
Both sides on the issue of greenhouse gases frame their arguments in terms of science, but each new scientific finding only raises new questions -- dooming the debate to be a pointless spiral. It's time, the authors argue, for a radically new approach: if we took practical steps to reduce our vulnerability to today's weather, we would go a long way toward solving the problem of tomorrow's climate.Reuters via ABC News - Chew Chew on This: Food for Thought as Carnivorous Robot Is 'Born': a robot that turns food into electricity. [faisal]...
An example of how more scientific research fuels political debate came in 1998, when a group of prominent researchers released the results of a model analyzing carbon-dioxide absorption in North America. Their controversial findings, published in the prestigious journal Science, suggested that the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by U.S. forests might be greater than the amount emitted by the nation's fossil-fuel combustion. This conclusion has two astonishing implications. First, the United States -- the world's most profligate energy consumer -- may not be directly contributing to rising atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide. Second, the atmosphere seems to be benefiting from young forests in the eastern United States that are particularly efficient at absorbing carbon dioxide. But these young forests exist only because old-growth forests were clear-cut in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to make way for farms that were later abandoned in favor of larger, more efficient midwestern farms. In other words, the possibility that the United States is a net carbon-dioxide sink does not reflect efforts to protect the environment; on the contrary, it reflects a history of deforestation and development.
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That's a problem with science -- it can turn around and bite you.
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If predicting how climate will change is difficult and uncertain, predicting how society will be affected by a changing climate -- especially at the local, regional, and national levels, where decision-making takes place -- is immeasurably more so. And predicting the impact on climate of reducing carbon-dioxide emissions is so uncertain as to be meaningless.
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Our view of climate and the environment draws on people's direct experience and speaks to widely shared values. It therefore has an emotional and moral impact that can translate into action. This view is framed by four precepts. First, the impacts of weather and climate are a serious threat to human welfare in the present and are likely to get worse in the future. Second, the only way to reduce these impacts is to reduce societal vulnerability to them. Third, reducing vulnerability can be achieved most effectively by encouraging democracy, raising standards of living, and improving environmental quality in the developing world. Fourth, such changes offer the best prospects not only for adapting to a capricious climate but also for reducing carbon-dioxide emissions.
Declan McCullagh at Wired FBI Pressuring Spy Archivist: Wired covers the FBI's hassling of John Young of cryptome.org. Lots of links to this story today. [grabbe wnd]
Kevin Tuma - Denial: cartoon commentary on Queen Hillary's denial of anti-semitic remarks and the effect of the matter on the democratic party.
Michelle Malkin at Jewish World Review - Score another one for TV execs who want to keep us brain-dead: A nice account of John Stossel's conversion to belief in the free market. He wanted to do an afternoon show, but the idea has been scuttled by the network execs. [wnd]
Stossel would have brought humor, style, and intellectual enlightenment to the wasteland of daytime TV. Rosie and Oprah and Katie and Bryant and the cast of General Hospital can all rest easier now. It's back to our regularly scheduled, fact-free, brain-dead programming.
A.F. Braco at KeepAndBearArms.com - Choose Wisely: huhuhuhuhu. [kaba]
Sergei Borglum Hoff at KeepAndBearArms.com - Treasonous and Unconstitutional Legislation: all the gun laws are treasonous and unconstitutional. References to court decisions supporting this. [kaba]
Contrary to "Socialist" propaganda, our Founding Fathers did not place limitations on the possession of arms - "(after receiving a concealed weapons permit) the right (limited by 20,000 state and federal gun laws) of the people to keep (inside their perilously unhandy gun safes) and bear arms (of specific description and registered with the Department of Justice and equipped with trigger safety locks, rendering the weapon useless for self-protection) shall not be infringed (unless feel-good solutions, opinion polls and Congress deem additional oppressive and unrealistic restrictions appropriate to their self-serving political needs)"....
Make no mistake! Anyone, regardless of ignorance or intent, who deprives you of the means or ability to defend the lives of yourself and family is your enemy and must be consciously and continuously perceived as such. All anti self-defense activists are as deadly a threat to you and your family as any uncontrolled violent criminal or psychopath. Their actions contributing to the same result, government along with many politicians (Clinton, Gore, Schumer, Feinstein, Laudenberg, Kennedy, Daschel, on and on) and street-wise criminals must all be held accountable for the thousands of men, women and children whose lives are lost to felonious assaults each year.
John A. Sutter - How Will They Confiscate Your Guns? Gun confiscation will not be as easy to fight as some may imagine. [kaba]
A Texan at KeepAndBearArms.com - Two Roads for America: this one is so strong that Angel felt a need to print a disclaimer. Outlines two possible futures for America, the socialist one and the free one. States that now is the time to take up arms and start offing the socialists, en masse. How do you tell who they are? L. Neil's X-Ray machine. If they deny the right to keep and bear arms, they are the enemy. I haven't come to this place yet, and I don't want to, but more and more I too believe there will be no other way to stop the march of socialism. [kaba]
Real Americans finally realize that the foremost and absolutely infallible indicator of a politician's level of corruption is his position on disarming citizens. They understand completely that a politician who votes to infringe on the right to keep and bear arms doesn't care one bit about America's history, its tradition, or its Constitution. They see that he doesn't trust his fellow citizens, and that he doesn't care one bit if they and their children are attacked by criminals and robbed or raped or murdered.The bright future arrives because real Americans finally realize that the goal of the Democrat Party and all their socialist fellow travelers is to see Americans stripped as completely as possible of the tools -- and the very right -- of self-defense, as has occurred in Japan, Australia, Great Britain, and so on. They grasp the simple fact that the Democrat Party and other socialists intend to see every American gun owner disarmed, imprisoned, or dead. The reason: because a disarmed America can be completely controlled, and that is what is necessary for full socialism to descend on the United States, and for the United States to be ultimately subjugated to a World Government.
