One department in the ultra-semi-secret world of semi-clandestine operations and general screwing around would have been in charge of building the thing to accomplish whatever task it was designed for, though due to rampant compartmentalization, they probably didn't know where it was being aimed.

Another department was probably in charge of making sure the world found out about it and that the project got plenty of attention so as to continue the psy-ops war against Iran. ("I'm not yet convinced that Iran really is the boogey man we need to spend a trillion dollars going to war against on flimsy evidence made up by a couple of psychopathic war-mongers in England and the U.S.. I need more news stories where Iran is the bad guy.")

And few of the project workers would have been clued into what the other project workers were clued into. Compartmentalization keeps stuff mostly secret but then drops the ball on organization.

Go Team!

-FL

That's it. Two lines.

There is a LOT of media energy being spent focusing on spinning up a ton of confusion based on old, (OLD) news and very little spent asking people who know what they are talking about to clear things up. It's almost as though there is some sort of vested interest in muddying the waters.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that Greenland saw the Sun rise two days too early this year. . ?

-A story which actually happens to be HUGELY important because it means our planet is changing significantly, (probably spinning more slowly.)

Though, I notice in the rush to forget about it as quickly as possible, they're actually trying to pin it to Global Warming. (As if they measure the annual sunrise dates against the tops of mutable ice and snow rather than a fixed horizon feature, like the ocean, for instance.)

Whatever the case. . , I smell distraction.

The world is changing in BIG ways, folks. But yes, let's confuse the issue by creating emotional links to nonsense stories that scientifically inclined people will then have to contend with should they ever wake up for long enough to notice the real issues happening around them.

-FL

I'm confused. You KNOW that astrology is bunk, but you don't know enough about it to understand this story?

Sorry. That doesn't parse.

How can you know enough to judge something you don't actually understand?

-Remember all those antagonist characters in stories the hero has to deal with? The ignorant Kafkaesque lunatics in power? Slashdot is full of weenie versions of them.

-FL

In your rush to arrogance, did you stop to consider that Astrologers have known about precession for as long as there has been a word for it?

It's just a labeling problem, and an easy one to solve. Astrologers who know their stuff work from current activity in the night time sky. This is only an issue among the ignorant, of which you are a member. Sorry.

There is as much disinformation among the New Age types as there is among the Science types. The god of Dogma wears all hats.

-FL

The fact that the vast majority of the people reading Slashdot have never done any honest hands-on research into Astrology, and who fall so easily into pack mentality, (laughing because everybody else is laughing regardless of the actual realities involved), speaks clearly as to the quality of the minds in question.

They're children. They are governed by fear of ridicule and they seek public acceptance above ALL else. Science is a powerful tool, but it only works when one is willing to act based on logic and objective observations even when the popular beliefs of the herd insist otherwise.

The simple fact that you have taken the time to actually explore and research Astrology beyond simply memorizing the popular critiques, means you are further developed than those who allow fear of ridicule and rejection by their peers to dictate their actions; to dictate their beliefs.

-FL

I also watch grammar as a means of gauging the competency of the poster. However, the technical flaws you point out are on the forgivable side of the line; that is there are such things as typos, and various colloquial usages which while not technically correct do not actually get in the way of robust communication. Those are okay by me. Your two sentences above, in fact, have a couple of technical flaws of that very sort which I let go for exactly this reason. They're not important and the intelligence of the poster comes through nonetheless. On the grammar side, anyway. In the reasoning side, I take exception. . .

Capitalizing improper nouns for effect is something I do all the time, and I call it "Style". It's like putting vocal emphasis on words when speaking, denoting importance within the context of the discussion. 'Science' and 'Astrology' are both the subjects of the debate, and depending on how I feel like writing on a given day, will get capitalized due to that significance.

Calling the poster's use of capitalization "Rampant" to denote a negative emotional quality to his writing style, which you then use to attack his credibility, is however, a curious thing for you to attack as doing so actually damages your own credibility exactly because it's such an unwarranted nit-pick.

There is no problem with his writing style. His reads as sane and collected. (Though, I'd add some extra carriage returns to make reading a bit easier). If you take issue with his thinking and his subject matter, then do so, but attacking based on flimsy grammar issues is cheap and evasive.

-FL

Because that's a blanket statement which isn't true all of the time, and you know it. There is corruption, greed and ineptness in the world, and to pretend that there isn't simply because we like the fundamental IDEA of vaccines, is foolish. Injecting mercury and formaldehyde and other questionable contaminants is a BAD idea even if it does happen to be done in conjunction with the execution of an otherwise GOOD idea.

In a black & white universe, it's easy to make choices. But our universe is filled with colors and shades, and that is why we give this subject our attention. It's how we learn.

People taking one side with great vehemence without considering the other really doesn't help.

-FL

Yeah, last year's flu vaccine bonanza world-wide sales due to all that fear marketing only reaped something like 6 billion dollars in sales split between a half dozen small medical companies. Just in time for Christmas bonuses.

But yeah, that IS actually relatively little money by comparison to all other combined drug sales. Amazing.

Though, I don't know about the world being better off with big pharma than without. People are fat and stupid as a direct result of food/drug companies and their policies. As with most things championed by Slashdotters; the idea is great, but the reality and execution are pretty damned corrupt.

-FL

Bullshit. Are you evil, insane or just ignorant?

And that doesn't take into account the pathological use of the highly toxic Corexit.

-FL

Nah. After the Ultraword (tm) fiasco, the project was (thankfully) abandoned.

-FL

Hate the damned site. Hate it.

I check in once a month (or less) just to access the dumb messages people don't feel fit to just email like in the old days, but mostly to make sure people don't feel left out. Apparently, I have several hundred friends. Who knew? I wish everybody the best, but I find that site aggravating beyond belief and I am almost 100% certain it's the result of some half-baked CIA funding on some level.

Best story I heard lately which sounds the death knell for that atrocious waste of bandwidth: "My mom wanted me to show her how to sign up. I said no way! I don't want her knowing about my social life!" (Speaker was a lesbian and whose hard-case mom didn't know it.)

FB is also no longer, as far as I can tell, useful for legions of bored stalkers and Jr. High social comparison because people have been locking down pictures and other "top secret" personal silliness. Thus, the main feature which attracted everybody to it, the chance to see beneath people's public masks, is now drying up.

That stupid, soul-diminishing site which encourages the dumbest, most 2-dimensional human behavior sets is dying, and not a moment too soon. The only thing which sours my joy over this fact is the unpleasant anticipation of what new horror is no doubt waiting in the wings to continue the feast upon people's hearts and minds.

-FL

You're willing to go out and look for yourself?

Most of the people here will never, ever do that. Heck, most people here, unless it's a TV program they can zone out in front of while pretending to be 'learning', will do exactly zero research into anything which has even a slight chance of accruing ridicule.

Kudos to you.

-FL

That's not really fair.

Corporate health care and food and drug systems have a proven track record of making everybody sick for profit, and the laws of competition simply don't work as promised in preventing this. If they did work, then Americans wouldn't be so fat and sick. At least with government there is the idea that control and regulation are in the hands of the public.

That's the dream, anyway. The reality is that the military/industrial interests have taken over the government, so democracy is a big fail.

But the original idea itself was sound. It's too bad that the real world is corrupt to the core. Thank-goodness for this coming ice age and the comets and all the other stuff which will be wiping the slate clean!

-FL

Actually, I'm glad the two of you posted. I can just add it to the list of items which seem to indicate that parts of North America are being affected differently by these weird weather patterns than is Europe.

-FL

Until you spend some time on the lonely side of the podium, it's hard to comment with a full scope of knowledge on this question.

Classes where laptops are left closed result in much more engaged and dynamic classes. Those where they are open result in the "room full of zombies" effect. There's a reason it's so annoying to talk with somebody who looks away and digs in a purse or engages elsewhere when it's your turn to speak. The bio-feedback loop collapses and the teacher might as well post lectures on YouTube and students post questions in an on-line forum somewhere. Heck; on YouTube you can pause and re-play stuff. And it's cheaper!

Universities were built and people attend them at great cost in order to assemble like-minds in one place so that everybody can benefit from those aspects of humanity which thrive on face to face communication, (also earned at great cost through the trials of evolution). There are many layers of communication taking place, both subtle and extreme, which bring a room alive when people engage in each other in meat-space, but which are stripped away when it's done through a computer screen. This doesn't mean that the virtual world is without benefit. It's not; computers are a boon. But the virtual world can be attended any time, any place you can flip open a laptop. It was built to simulate the grand effect of a campus assembly. But if you are actually attending a college assembly. . ?

Laptops need to be used responsibly. Turn off animations and distracting screen savers in respect of the people sitting near you. If you're going to take notes, then sure, do so, but have the courtesy to limit it to notes and stay engaged in discussions. If you need to look something up to aid the discussion, then sure, do that, but in general things work best when all eyes and ears are on whoever is speaking. If you want to play on Facebook or dip into a game, then that's fine by me, but please physically leave class first because you're literally sucking the life out of the room by removing your mind and leaving a vacant corpse in your chair. It's creepy.

Ideally, I like to have wifi and fluorescent lights killed and windows open for fresh air. I also like to rearrange the chairs so that we can all see each other to better engage. Do that, and everybody wakes up, but these days it's very hard to scrub an environment of all the fuzz designed to keep us zoned out.

-FL