ELF Knocks Down AM Towers To Save Earth, Intercoms 616
ScentCone writes "The ELF (Earth Liberation Front) has claimed responsibility for destroying the primary AM towers used by radio station KRKO in Washington state. From their statement: 'AM radio waves cause adverse health effects including a higher rate of cancer, harm to wildlife, and that the signals have been interfering with home phone and intercom lines.' The poor intercom performance must have been the last straw."
Citation Needed (Score:5, Informative)
I'm from Jamaica, the show-me island. So show me you're blowing it out your fanny!
(obligatory Futurama reference)
I wonder if any of these ELF people understand physics... Radio behaves according to the inverse square law; in effect, your cellphone exposes you to much more power than all the cell towers around you, simply due to it being much closer. Similarly, any local transmitter you have (e.g. microwave ovens, CRTs, wifi APs, high-speed digital circuitry, etc) will expose you to more power than those far-away broadcast towers. Unless the AM radio tower is in your backyard, you are probably not in tremendous danger...
Re:Citation Needed (Score:5, Informative)
Ignoring the fact that we aren't very good conductors... at 5-6 feet tall, I doubt the human body can effectively absorb a lot of this relatively very-long-wavelength radiation.
Does anyone have actual data or methods to predict this kind of effect on human bodies?
Re:Citation Needed (Score:5, Funny)
Ignoring the fact that we aren't very good conductors... at 5-6 feet tall, I doubt the human body can effectively absorb a lot of this relatively very-long-wavelength radiation.
In addition to all of that, there's a reason EM radiation of longer wavelengths is called "non-ionizing". Hint: it's because it's incapable of ionizing anything.
Re:Citation Needed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Citation Needed (Score:5, Insightful)
if they are middle class they will try and justify it under some 'flavour of the month' banner
Wait... are you saying that if they aren't middle class they'll justify it differently or not at all? What does class have to do with any of this?
Re:Citation Needed (Score:5, Insightful)
Different classes will justify crime differently:
The poor - "Its the man keeping me down" and "I just get mixed up with the wrong crowd" are both popular.
The middle class - will usually invent some sort of obscure social justice or environmentalist excuse like the one we see here. Generally very little actual thought goes into developing this excuse; and its all over some snake oil that was sold to them by someone else with a grander agenda. In rare cases its an actual problem in that what they say is happening actually is and there are some known negative consequences. In these instances they are just opposed to whatever it is, and don't have any sort of alternative solution; unless involves depopulation on a massive scale and most of use learning to be content with tree bark and wild berries for dinner.
The rich - most of the time won't have any excuse of their own per say but will pay an attorney to invent some exotic legal excuse the rest of use can't really understand even when we try. Most of the time the only thing legal about said excuse is the linguistic style its presented in; still it will be excepted more often than not because few others are really interested and still fewer have the resources or wherewithal to argue the matter.
The political - will find away to blame successful noncriminal members of the middle class. They will go with social justice tack as well but it will be slightly more reasoned than the middle class criminal's excuse. Generally not only will the excuse succeed in getting them off the hook for their crime but will also enable them to pass some sort of self serving public policy.
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I want to drive to Seattle and set fire to the ELF's office, plus any other ELF offices I pass along the way, because I think they need to be taught a lesson that losing millions of dollars of property HURTS. Eye-for-an-eye, "walk in your victim's shoes", and all that stuff.
So which category am I in?
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ELF does not have an office because they work as isolated individuals or covert cells. Really, anyone could [i]claim[/i] to be affiliated with ELF and technically be correct. Their ideology is clearly stated in some of the works released by more established members, and the actual actions presented here seem to be in line with them. The reasons why these actions were carried out seem to be fairly shortsighted however, and not of the same ethical caliber of spiking trees and freeing test animals.
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I want to drive to Seattle and set fire to the ELF's office
Careful: the last guy who tried to burn down an ELF office was Sauron, and look where it got him...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yep. I think this is a universal phenomenon around the world. Poor people readily admit their crimes, but blame them on the circumstances of leading a life in poverty. Middle class people tend to blame it on "violations" by "society" or perhaps more specifically by something like capitalism or socialism, depending on where they hail from politically. Working class people's excuses are a mix of the poor man's excuse and the middle class man's excuse. Upper class people tend to argue that they didn't know tha
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Intercoms are Class B (C?) devices anyway. That means they are required to accept interference from other sources like Radio or TV, and they are required to shutdown if they interfere with radio, television, or other licensed service.
In other words, if the AM was interfering with your intercom - tough luck. Same applies to other devices like FM-transmitting Ipods, or wireless internet-capable TV Band devices. That's the price you pay for using that type of unlicensed device.
Demand a Tuition Refund! (Score:3, Funny)
I thought a lot of eco-terrorists were rich bored college students.
If that applies to this lot then they should demand a refund on their tuition because they clearly aren't well educated!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Tongue in cheek, I know, but giving them knowledge of Arts and Sciences is not the same as teaching them judgment. I mean look at most James Bond villians!
Re:Citation Needed (Score:5, Informative)
The fact that radiation is not ionizing anything does not imply that it has no effect on living tissue. It could induce microcurrents in some tissues, or cause certain molecules to resonate in a way which affected important chemical reactions.
Which is not to say that AM radio does have any effect, only that "it's not ionizing!" is not a refutation.
Biological systems are complex; if something as relatively simple as a computer can be effected by EM radiation, it's not completely batty to speculate that biological systems might be also. There are a few studies -- such as this one [wiley.com] -- that have suggested effects on cerebral blood flow or on sleep patterns, but the data remains spotty at best.
I repeat, I'm not claiming that such effects exist, nor am I defending this vandalism. (Calling it "terrorism" is, of course, ridiculous.) But claiming that EM radiation can't have any health effects because it's not ionizing is bad science.
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(Calling it "terrorism" is, of course, ridiculous.)
Why? It's clearly terrorism. And I say that as an environmentalist, but one with no sympathy for the ELF's beliefs or tactics. Their actions fit the definition perfectly.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Firstly, you use Wikipedia as a source? Moreover, your own link contains verbiage which would classify this as terrorism, only you didn't put it in bold:
Common definitions of terrorism refer only to those violent acts which are intended to create fear (terror), are perpetrated for an ideological goal (as opposed to a lone attack), and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants.
How is knocking over a massive antenna not disregarding "the safety of non-combatants"? Further:
Much of the ti
Re:Citation Needed (Score:4, Insightful)
That still doesn't make it terrorism.
Re:Citation Needed (Score:5, Insightful)
They would have to perform an act with the express intent of causing terror and fear in the general populace, also typically involving idealogical goals (check) and targeting civilians with violence (not check).
I don't think that knocking down a single AM radio tower qualifies, although it is certainly vandalism, destruction of property and other things.
I mean, if I destroyed everyone's wifi devices in my building with a hammer, I'm crazy and have destroyed property in a criminal manner. But am I a terrorist?
Re:Citation Needed (Score:5, Insightful)
You said it yourself. People who deliberately go out of their way not to hurt anyone should not be lumped in with people who crash planes into skyscrapers. They're both criminals, but the latter is in an entirely different league of Evil.
As for the ELF: Come on, guys, if you're going to break the law and destroy stuff, at least base your actions on science, not pseudoscience. I might sympathize somewhat if you all blew up something that was causing *actual* environmental degradation. All you did was annoy AM radio listeners.
Re:non-ionizing means no chemical reactions. (Score:5, Insightful)
If inducing a current merely causes "an increase in temperature", please explain how radio communication works...
At the broadest perspective, sure, any energy input is "an increase in temperature". When you set up your crystal radio to receive AM transmissions, yes indeedy, the thing does warm up a bit as it absorbs EM radiation. (Even though some if it is turned into mechanical energy in the earpiece, it's not 100% efficient.) But describing the operation of the radio as "an increase in temperature" is misleading, to put it kindly.
Can non-ionizing EM radiation have an effect on biological systems? You are, quite literally, looking at the answer.
Can EM radiation in the radio range at low intensity have an effect on biological systems? I dunno. Consider the hot and cold spots that arise as you microwave your burrito. Could very mild but uneven heating have an effect?
If something "gets a little warmer", chemical reactions are affected. If you don't understand this last sentence then please go take a chemistry class and come back.
The scientific way of answering the question "does EM radiation effect biological systems" is to observe biological systems that have been exposed to various sorts of EM radiation and see if there are any effects. Saying "our models don't allow for such effects, therefore they cannot exist" is faith-based reasoning, not science.
Re:non-ionizing means no chemical reactions. (Score:5, Insightful)
Can non-ionizing EM radiation have an effect on biological systems? You are, quite literally, looking at the answer.
Excellent example - you beat me to it :) In case the OP is a bit slow (likely!): a photon in the visible light spectrum is non-ionizing, yet it is able to excite photoreceptor cells in the retina by causing a molecule (appropriately named retinal) to isomerize, which catalyzes a whole chain of chemical reactions.
For that matter... if you really wanted to rub it in you could have even pointed out that heat receptors do roughly the same thing, so "an increase in temperature" directly causes chemical reactions in your skin!
Why is it always the people with the fewest facts who are the most arrogant, and start throwing around insults first? ;)
Of course, that being said, I'm sure we all agree that the ELF is a bunch of wackos, and your body absorbs thousands of times more radiation standing outside for a few minutes than it ever would from an AM antenna. We better be careful, their next terrorist act may be to destroy the sun!
Re:non-ionizing means no chemical reactions. (Score:5, Insightful)
Your entire post could be summed up as "I understand a little about radio and microwaves and its effects on animals and humans, and assume nobody else has ever studied this completely new phenomenon".
The truth is people HAVE studied radio and microwaves and its effects on animals/humans for many many years. They've also studied the 50/60 HZ radiation produced by power lines. The conclusions are that it's not harmful. Speculating about what it COULD do and coming up with pet theories about just how it MIGHT harm someone is not science, it's nonsense.
Your own ignorance is not other peoples ignorance. People like yourself who are willfully ignorant and who sit around speculating about how the unobserved harmful effect just MIGHT work are the reason I see stupid marketing on floor heating product about how their amazing technology cancels the EM radiation. Next I'll see marketing on bricks about how their amazing brick technology cancels all the virtual particles created in the empty space within atoms in the bricks. This makes it so the bricks don't gain mass over time.
Re:Citation Needed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Citation Needed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Citation Needed (Score:5, Informative)
The maximum permissible exposure to the general public from a radiator must be lower than the prescribed limits outside of the fence line. Lower frequencies, like AM radio, have a much higher permissible power than the frequencies used in cell phones or WiFi because the biological effect is less.
They fact that they mention interference to intercoms would lead one to think one of those involved may live nearby or near another antenna.
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Re:Citation Needed (Score:4, Insightful)
Most of the effect on human tissue is heating and in the microwave range.
Yeah, people make calculations assuming that the only effect could be thermal, in which case you're right.
But there could be another mechanism, even one we don't know about yet.
I don't believe low-level electromagnetic radiation is dangerous, but there are studies that show cells grown in culture exposed to low-level radiation had more mutations than unexposed cells. (I forget the details, but I read about it in IEEE Spectrum. )
Cell reproduction is pretty complicated. How do you exclude the possibility that EMF may cause a mutation by an unknown mechanism? My first thought would be to duplicate the experiment and hope it turns out differently. But suppose you can duplicate it?
After all, low-level magnetic fields have biological effects -- birds navigate by them.
I don't think it's true. But I can't exclude it.
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But there could be another mechanism, even one we don't know about yet.
That's not how science works. First you determine that there is some sort of effect, then go looking for a mechanism. Go find an effect and we'll look for the reason why.
How do you exclude the possibility that EMF may cause a mutation by an unknown mechanism?
It's not ionizing, so that's pretty simple. Cells are fairly resilient - a small amount of heat isn't that big a deal.
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Heh guess I'll have a tough time selling them on the idea of Satellite based Solar Power?
Re:Citation Needed (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if any of these ELF people understand physics
Oh, there's no need to wonder. The answer is: No, they don't.
Re:Citation Needed (Score:4, Insightful)
Life in America has gotten so easy that most people will grasp at straws so they can be outraged about something. You know... To keep them busy and feel like they are actually doing something important... And to um... Keep themselves out of trouble.
I think these people can do more good other then trying to destroy them and pointless protesting (having done work in Albany, Up in the towers 20th floor where all the big decision makers are located, You can have a huge protest of thousands of people and people up there will have no idea what it is about. Heck they could probably do more good by doing things like say organizing a towns recycling policy and get more people to participate. Help setup a socal network where you can increase car pooling by finding people who go to like locations and work similar hours.
Re:Citation Needed (Score:5, Funny)
"Life in America has gotten so easy that most people will grasp at straws so they can be outraged about something. You know... To keep them busy and feel like they are actually doing something important... "
Nonsense!
I'd reply at more length but I've a Town Hall meeting to picket. We must stop Obamessianic Socialism!
Re:Citation Needed (Score:5, Informative)
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I think any such link would be easy to spot unless the effect is so miniscule that it doesn't show up without a very large sample, in which case all kinds of other questions come up: how does it compare to having a cell phone, or really any kind of
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Unfortunately, radio waves are non-habit forming.
Idiots. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Idiots. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Idiots. (Score:5, Funny)
Unlikely. The AM broadcasts saw to that.
REALLY? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:REALLY? [interference] (Score:4, Interesting)
But they are right about the interference issue. I live a little more than a mile away from AM towers, and they cause all kinds of goofy stuff. Anything with speakers or headphones is an AM radio here. I had to buy new equipment to get rid of the interference via trial and error with my wallet. I used to dismiss the Brady Bunch episode where Jan's braces picked up a radio station. But now it seems plausible.
However, I assure you I have no plans to bomb it. Although, I'd like give them a 20-foot finger.
Re:REALLY? [interference] (Score:5, Informative)
Ferrite cores. If you put them on the wires picking up the signal, it's supposed to stop the pickup.
Re:REALLY? [interference] (Score:5, Informative)
Also, watch out for ground loops. If you plug your computer into your power strip, and then plug an amplifier into the analog audio out connector, and then plug your amp into the outlet, you've created a loop antenna in the ground system (there's a loop running from power strip to computer to amp to power strip, because the audio out cable has 2 single-ended signal lines plus a ground line). Getting rid of such loops can be hard (cutting the ground line in the audio cable doesn't entirely solve the problem and has its own issues, for example), but being aware of them and minimizing the area that they enclose can help dramatically.
I saw an example where the problem was exactly as above, and until they moved the power cables around to shrink the loop the local AM station always played on the speakers.
Re:REALLY? [interference] (Score:4, Informative)
The size of the loop makes a difference. Consider two devices connected by a shielded signal cable. If they are plugged into the same power outlet, the loop is no larger than the length of the power cords and the signal cable. The safety grounds come together at the outlet. There should be no significant current flowing in the power cord safety grounds.
Now plug the two devices into different outlets. The outlet safety grounds might not come together any closer than the electrical panel. In theory, safety grounds only carry current during a malfunction. In practice, there are induced currents and leakage. One outlet's ground may carry leakage from a furnace blower motor, and the other does not. Cable TV coax is should be tied to the electrical panel ground where the coax enters the house. This means that the coax shield forms another large ground loop when connected to any single-ended device with a safety ground, for example audio equipment.
Devices powered from different outlets should not be connected by single-ended signal cables. Professional audio uses balanced connections, and the shield is usually only connected at the input side. You can put a ground isolation balun in the cable TV coax where it connects to your TV. If all of your home entertainment devices are plugged into the same outlet, and you isolate the cable TV ground, you should not have hum. Keep the cable short, and you shouldn't have RF problems. Speaker cables are long enough to act as antennas, so if you live near a transmitter, you may want to put ferrite cores on the cables near the amplifier.
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Also magnetic cock rings.
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Funny that, I've worked in radio stations where the audio board was 6 feet away from the transmitter. We didn't have the AM signal bleeding into the audio, or the phone system, or anything. You must not have you equipment setup right. See the post in this thread about ground-loops.
Have you tried calling the station for help? Most will gladly let you talk to the engineer to figure out a solution.
Re:REALLY? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is it that none of the "radio waves are going to kill us all" crowd seems to have done a single epidemiological study of people living in this intense, continual, long-term bath of radiation? Instead pretty much all I see are collections of anecdotal accounts with no controls. "They put a cell tower next door last week and today I have cancer" is not what I would consider a definitive study.
Epidemiological studies are not that expensive in the US, once consent forms have been gathered it comes down to statistical analysis of already-computerized data. It's more of a job for insurance analysts, who are actually very well equipped for this sort of task.
Re:REALLY? (Score:4, Insightful)
You actually made a very, very good point. Insurance companies know the addresses and medical histories of millions of americans. These are most definitely NOT charity organizations, either- we've all heard stories about coverage being dropped for pre-existing conditions or people being denied important procedures. I know from personal experience how difficult it is to squeeze money out of them. So we have a large body of evidence showing that the agencies will do anything for a buck (or to save a buck).
Now- an organization with the power, knowledge, money, and motivation to deny coverage to people living near broadcast antennae *should already be doing that*.
But they're not. And I have worked for an insurance agency (United Healthcare/uniprise)- EM radiation is simply not a concern. Hell, the facility I worked at was within line-of-sight of our city's antenna farm- I can't find exact specs, but the farm includes basically ALL TV, radio, etc. for the entire city. I can pick up some radio stations from those antennae a good 100 miles away (FM).
-b
Re:REALLY? (Score:4, Informative)
You are obviously not a radio engineer, or you'd know that the maximum power a radio station is allowed in the United States is 100,000 watts, not 400,000 watts.
Further, since you're talking about a transmitter on a tower, the actual output is likely closer to 4,000 watts for 100,000 watts of EFFECTIVE radiated power, which is not the same thing as ACTUAL radiated power. It's all about height. That's part of the reason why satellite radio can cover the entire country with just 3,000 watt transmitters -- they're in space.
Also, the days of the 5,000,000-watt TV stations are over. The maximum power for station on channels 2-13 is now 10,000 watts I think. On UHF I believe it's around 60,000 watts unless the station gets STA from the FCC. I could be wrong about those numbers, though.
Re:REALLY? (Score:4, Interesting)
I sit corrected. After looking at news photos of the event, it seems the towers were free-standing (i.e., they had no guys), and were series-fed, meaning that the towers were insulated from ground by insulators placed in each tower leg. While there would have been a brief light show when the excavator first touched the tower above the insulators, the operator was in no serious danger of electrocution as long as he stayed at the controls, since the machine itself would have carried the transmitted current to ground. It's likely that the transmitter's self-protection circuitry would have detected the short circuit at its output very quickly, and shut the transmitter down (before it could be electrically damaged). After that, unless a restart of the transmitter were attempted (either manually, remotely from the studio, or automatically, by a timer), the operator was probably in much greater danger of being killed by falling steel than by anything electrical.
Re:REALLY? (Score:4, Informative)
How about a less anecdotal statement:
(emphasis mine) . Link here [nih.gov]
Unnecessarily destructive (Score:5, Funny)
They should have just wrapped the towers in tin foil.
Morons! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet another group of ignorant children playing dangerous games in the adult world. Sigh.
Re:Morons! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Are they going to blow up the sun next?
Nature is ahead of them on that. Fortunately for us, it takes quite a while for something that size to blow.
Poor ELF people (Score:3, Funny)
Can't you hear how they are crying out "No, his antenna is too small. It will never carry low enough frequencies. Die, you small antenna!"?
This is why we need science education (Score:5, Insightful)
Say it with me:
"This is why we need science education"
"This is why we need science education"
"This is why we need science education"
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Please! No! My head hurts! I think it's going to ASPLODE!"
Breaking news from 99Chan: There seems to be a pandemic of asploding heads this school year. Pagans and deists are attempting to correlate the pandemic with recently enacted legislation which requires high school graduates to understand basic physics. Some radical groups are saying "If man were meant to have science, he would be born with it!"
That's News Live at Five - updates at 11:00!
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No. We have science education. The bar is set way too low for high school graduates. Physics was an option when I went to high school. I took the class and understood more when I effectively took the same course over in college just like Chemistry and a few others. Now when people graduate from high school they know what they want and not what they should. Science education is not a problem. Science education of a higher order of general knowledge should be mandatory.
And to put the towers back up... (Score:4, Funny)
Doubt it was ELF (Score:5, Interesting)
Disclaimers: I live a few houses down from the station owner, so I've followed this for a while. I was a broadcast engineer in a past life (even did some contracting at a former iteration of this station.)
Here is the story from the local paper: http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20090905/NEWS01/709059909&news01ad=1 [heraldnet.com] (good set of pictures)
From the Seattle Times [nwsource.com] version: "Andy Skotdal, general manager of the family-owned sports-radio station, isn't convinced ELF is responsible, even though the group's North American press office in Washington, D.C., issued a news release and posted an item on its national Web site Friday saying it was.
He suspects disgruntled locals who have long opposed the siting of the towers on 40 acres of farmland may have taken matters into their own hands after losing a key ruling in King County Superior Court a few weeks ago.
"My suspicion is, it's somebody local," Skotdal, whose family has owned the station for 20 years, said by phone Friday as he watched dozens of sheriff's detectives and FBI agents comb the property for evidence. "It could be somebody painting ELF on a banner to throw off suspicion."
In the same story, the FBI sees a few things that point to ELF but they are only a day into the investigation. I'd lay away from making a call right now on who is responsible.
Either way, stealing a excavator, driving it through a muddy field and pulling down two towers has to leave a good amount of evidence. I'm also thinking that the guy wires must have been cut too, just to keep from kill the machine operator on the first tower.
Re:Doubt it was ELF (Score:4, Informative)
There is no 'ELF' and there's no way to arrange an alliance with them.
I wish slashdot would explain what 'ELF' is a little better when posting articles about it. They are a front. Something that exists solely so that people can attribute their actions to it. That is what 'front' means.
Usually, the fact a group is a front is a secret, but when it's in the name of the group, it means the organization doesn't officially exist, hence anyone can claim to be working for it. Groups spring up that claim they're part of it, because they share the same goals, and they attribute their actions to it, which keep them from having to expose themselves and state their goals. They can use the other, nonexistent group as a 'front'.
And there's a press office in DC that is not ELF, but the 'ELF press office', which will just simply repeat whatever message you send it. You don't have to actually work for 'ELF' to get them to repeat your message, because there is no actual 'ELF' to work for. (And they, quite deliberately, are operated with no knowledge of people actually doing the things, so have no way to confirm this stuff.)
Just to be on the safe side (Score:3, Funny)
ELF and direct action responsibility (Score:3, Interesting)
Number one rule for direct action:
Have your facts straight. If you target the wrong people, or if your science is bad, you're sacrificing credibility and making people angry for no good reason.
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Bullshit.
"Terrorist" groups do not do what they do just for laughs. They have a reason.
I've participated in various direct action groups, years ago - they're full of devoted, caring people. Not all of them are as clued as they should be, but they're not people who just like blowing things up.
Yeah, there are some weirdos out there (Score:3, Interesting)
Just go ahead and check out these instructions on how to make "Holy Hand Grenades" and "Tower Busters". Granted, this is less destructive than knocking down towers, but the ignorance involved is just about as scary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccS70UQE0fE [youtube.com]
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I wish I hadn't watched that. Some things get under my skin and ruin my whole day...
I just love how the guy is using these crystals to protect himself from cell towers- By using *acetone* and poly casting resin (The activator for this stuff is terrible; read the MSDS for this product http://www.evercoat.com/productDetail.aspx?pID=23 [evercoat.com] ).
This fake science is just as offensive as racism, nationalism, homophobia, or any other irrational philosophy that ignores or even spits on the accumulated empirical evidence
Re:Yeah, there are some weirdos out there (Score:5, Funny)
And no, there aren't two equal but opposing viewpoints regarding EM. There's right and wrong. Fact and fiction.
Oh, that's just your viewpoint, which is equally valid as my viewpoint, which is that right and wrong are subjective and decided largely by volume of ranting and by a sense of fairness, such that even my made up bullshit gets to be right for a day every once in a while.
And on that day, AM radio towers will cure cancer. I demand an equal amount of airtime for my view as for you and ELF on the non-AM media channels.
Re:Yeah, there are some weirdos out there (Score:5, Funny)
You know it occurred to me just now that these people with their orgone or whatevers, you know the things with the quartz crystals... They claim that somehow the crystals absorb the EM waves or something; I honestly don't really know the entire spiel.
What do you think would happen if we told them that radio waves are generated using a quartz crystal oscillator? Head explosion? Rending of clothes and gnashing of teeth?
Sadly, it would probably go something like this little conversation I had with my vegan friend:
"It's terrible to kill and eat animals. It's not natural."
"So, should we kill all the wolves and tigers and ferrets? They kill and eat animals."
"That's different because they're natural."
"What are humans, then? Aliens?"
"We have self awareness, so we have the duty to be kind to animals."
"So if animals aren't self-aware, wouldn't that mean that they don't have souls or feel pain?"
"..."
"If wolves became self-aware and stopped eating meat, they'd become sick and maybe die. They have evolved to be carnivores."
"Yeah but humans haven't, we have molars."
"We also have incisors."
"That's for berries."
[facepalm, walk away]
She has a degree in teaching, btw.
-b
ELF (Score:5, Funny)
I always knew that GCC produced gigantic ELF files, but big enough to knock over an AM tower? This is just ridiculous.
Damn ELF (Score:4, Funny)
Down with Elves! (Score:3, Funny)
A possibly related event on the East Coast (Score:5, Interesting)
A tower outside of Allentown, PA was deliberately felled [mcall.com] the same night. As it was a guyed tower, the vandals cut the guys to bring it down.
No (Score:4, Insightful)
First, damage to property is not violence. The proper response is to seize the assets of anyone connected with the plot, and prosecute the case as a crime.
Second, no one should condone irrational behavior like this. But before you go after the environmentalists with guns, you should probably consider that in the grand scheme of things, the loss of AM towers are the tiniest problems facing the nation right now.
If you want to repeat history, by all means, crack down on the ELF and send them all to prison and beat up anyone in the group. Throw the PATRIOT act in their faces. Within no time at all you will have given their movement the publicity and recruiting tools to really cause problems. And erode public support as more and more people are locked up by guilt from association. Or you can arrest the criminals who participated in the act, force the dissolution of the rest of the group unless they officially renounce property damage as a method of protest, and actually take care of the problem.
Nobody likes ELF. Not even their "allies." (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to repeat history, by all means, crack down on the ELF and send them all to prison and beat up anyone in the group. Throw the PATRIOT act in their faces. Within no time at all you will have given their movement the publicity and recruiting tools to really cause problems. Within no time at all you will have given their movement the publicity and recruiting tools to really cause problems. And erode public support as more and more people are locked up by guilt from association.
I agree with all of your post except this point. Unlike many Islamic terrorist groups, the ELF rarely if ever takes any sort of positive action "back home" to draw in sympathy (e.g. Hamas and Hezbollah run charity hospitals). Additionally, those organizations have an enemy that is widely reviled by their neighbors and considered a threat to their lives and way of life (i.e. Israel and the US). Sympathy for terrorism only happens when normal people feel there's some sort justification for the terrorists' actions.
ELF, in contrast, strikes out seemingly randomly at many targets that are not nearly the worst offenders, like the radio station here or by burning an entire car dealership for selling SUVs. Worse for them, the rest of the green movement is generally filled with people who respect principles of nonviolence and wouldn't support such against against even the worst offenders. That's why next to no one has any sympathy for ELF; they're practically green anarchists. I'm about as tree-hugging as you can get, but absolutely NO environmentalist that I know has ANY sympathy for these losers.
Personally, I'd be happy if they were all locked up so that those of us who aren't violent radicals wouldn't have to have them used against us by people on the other side of the debate.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'm really not trolling here, but PETA has been funding ELF for years.
http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/general/columns/story?columnist=guest_columnist&page=g_col_PETA_ELF_NYPost [go.com] has a reprinted article from the NY Post.
I don't see many stories that are very recent, outside of what seem like blogs and bash-fests, but since PETA has denied ties all along, it doesn't make much difference to me whether they claim to have stopped or not.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, and anyone with a bit of sense doesn't fucking support PETA either! They're worse than the damn ELF!
'ELF' at least limits their harm to property, whereas PETA constantly harms animals, and them reaching their goal in life would end up with cows dying all over the place and people having to shoot feral cats and dogs.
And, perhaps more to the point, 'ELF' does not actually exist. There is no organization named 'ELF' that goes around doing things. There is a 'press office' that supposedly reprints messag
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's an awfully interesting position to take. Nuclear weapons are meant to destroy vast swaths of property, but no one calls them non-violent. Similarly, the primary purpose of destroying an AM radio tower is non-violent, but the corrollary effects can very easily be violent, (such as the destruction of part of the emergency broadcast system). That's not a "what if" scenario... the EBS is used for many things and does save lives.
And that's completely avoiding
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So, if I burned down your house, that wouldn't be an act of violence?
When in war, bombs are dropped on cities, that isn't violent?
When someone with a knife stabs the wall beside your head, that isn't violent either?
You've got a screwy sense of what is and isn't violent.
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
First: I'll just say that these sorts just make me wish to be hanging around with a sniper rifle. Our way of life, our technological civilization is based on massive amounts of infrastructure investments. I get irked at people destroying that in the name of the environment - at least one developer swapped out his building materials with less green ones deliberately after an EFL faction burned part of his development down.
Burning a SUV doesn't do anything but cause the car company to use even more resources to build another one. Same with home building.
First, damage to property is not violence. The proper response is to seize the assets of anyone connected with the plot, and prosecute the case as a crime.
Sure it's violence. Which would cost you more of your life - a day in the hospital, even a week, or $100k of damage?
Insurance isn't a true response either - it's just spreading the pain/cost around. Everybody's premiums go up because of shit like this.
If you want to repeat history, by all means, crack down on the ELF and send them all to prison and beat up anyone in the group. Throw the PATRIOT act in their faces. Within no time at all you will have given their movement the publicity and recruiting tools to really cause problems. And erode public support as more and more people are locked up by guilt from association.
Or the stupid teens will be spending too much time behind bars to get into trouble? The older members will be exposed as the domestic terrorists they are?
Re:Stop this now. (Score:4, Interesting)
No, no, no. No need to group the treehuggers, the illiterate, nor the morons in with ELF. ELF is a bunch of lunatics who strive to be the most notable domestic terrorists. They'll usually burn cars, buildings (every good environmentalist likes a good bon fire, right?), and I guess knock over radio antennas now.
Since it's decentralized in nature, any nut can say they're ELF. Well, just like any nut can say they're Al-Qaeda. You'd have to be a nut to say you're aligned with either one though. Well, I guess you'd have to be a nut to go around burning things just because you felt they did you wrong.
Speaking of which, I feel a cigarette has done me wrong, so I'm going to burn one rather than reading any more about Nutjubs Inc. :)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
don't know what's more funny, this comment, or the fact that it was moderated "Insightful."
It's truly surprising how self-destructive these people are... do they really expect that they will gain support for actions like this? Their movement, and their cause will only suffer for stupidity like this.
Re:Stop this now. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Stop this now. (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps it also has to do with calling feeding kids meat child abuse [peta.org].
Maybe it could be with this not so tactful ad [divinecaroline.com].
Or maybe he's offended by PETA's ads that make mothers out to be murderers. [howtonotsuck.com]
Then PETA goes on to say that dad's a psychopathic killer [trueslant.com].
Re:Stop this now. (Score:5, Informative)
In 2006 PETA found new homes for a grand total of 12 animals on a $31m budget. The rest were killed.
Source: http://www.nraila.org/Issues/Articles/Read.aspx?id=288&issue=021 [nraila.org]
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why the "treehugging" qualifier?
Because these people don't want to "save" the planet for man... they place the planet above man. They view this not as our home, but view people as inferior, a parasite on their world. We call them treehuggers because these people are essentially a pagan earth cult. They're a Gaia-worshipping Luddite movement.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that many people who agree that humanity is less important than the environment misinterpret that as "Humanity is not important at all" and then feel free to act wantonly. It's a logical failing of stupid people, but it's not the overarching philosophy itself that is stupid.
What is required is a fair dose of pragmatism. It's much easier and more effective to get one person, ten people, a million people, to change their ways or work with you than it is to destroy them. Likewise, you must pick your battles. Saving one whale at all costs will not dramatically help the world - use some of that effort to raise awareness so that the community demands the saving of all whales.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I've got news for you, we could light off every nuke and explosive device ever made, and the "Earth" would be back to normal in a geological blink-of-an-eye. There have been mass extinctions before, much worse than we could accomplish, and the ecosystem recovers quickly. A few million years from now you would have some bipedal-squid geologist studying a 0.5cm layer of radioactive soil in the ground and wondering where it came from. That would be the only record of our brief foray on this planet.
Now, if you
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I've got plenty of tolerance for extreme greens, extreme vegans and extreme whatevers, so long as they don't bother me with it.
It seems, though, the problem is the extremism, not the underlying stance. Afterall, who cares if they believe the desert
"Almost"? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Y'know, I can almost respect them for torching SUVs "
If you can almost respect them for destroying someone else's property, then you're almost as much as asshole as they are.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not saying that I support the position of OP, but...well, if you paint it in "destroying property" categories, SUVs also fit nicely, with their pointless (with most owners) waste of resources and greater danger on the road...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>>>SUVs..... their mere existence is also a pointless "destruction of property" in most cases
False.
The person who owns the mine which holds the metal (or rubber or petroleum) sells that property to the carmaker who reshapes it into a vehicle which is then sold to a private citizen. At no point has property been destroyed, but instead transferred, some labor mixed-in with the property, and then transferred again.
If you're trying to say that SUVs emit harmful pollutants, well that's true, but so too
Re:How strange (Score:5, Insightful)
Y'know, I can almost respect them for torching SUVs - If the government won't tell people "No, you may not drive a vehicle that presents a significant danger* to everyone else on the road, without special training for the appropriate license class", then perhaps fear of having their car burn down one night kept at least a few people driving more realistic vehicles.
So lemme get this straight. You almost respect them for:
- extreme vandalism,
- severely inconveniencing people who rely on their vehicles, which also inconveniences the people who rely on them,
- causing a metric fuckton of air pollution all in one go,
- risking catching something else or someone on fire,
- destroying an SUV that will likely be replaced with ANOTHER SUV, thus INCREASING the demand for them,
because you think the LICENSE BUREAU isn't doing a good job? Would you respect them more or less if you thought they were burning SUVs because the patent office isn't doing a good job?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I suggest you examine you reservoirs before you make that statement. Most of the ones in California are running around 60% full and dropping. As to your second point about replenishing the water table, it doesn't. Most irrig
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, those ELF folks just HATE Washington State University football! The station [krko.com] broadcasts a sports radio format and covers many of the local high school games. Unless the ELF has a dog in the Everett vs. Monroe football game, your comment makes no sense.
Re:And, appearently they induce criminal behavior (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah, but if the 'leaders' of these 'ecowarriors' go to jail, who will lead the 'troops'? You send the 'troops' to jail, but keep the 'leaders' free to inspire more and more violent actions in the name of ELF, etc.
ELF, btw, is 'descended' from an outfit called Earth First! [activistcash.com], who include people like convicted arsonist Rod Coronado [targetofopportunity.com] as sterling examples of the 'best' that they offer. No wonder PETA [animalscam.com] likes nutjobs like him, they make PETA look 'moderate'.
I was talking with an ecofreak once who told me that the 'carrying capacity' of Earth for humans is on the order of 500 million tops. So, with about 7 billion people on the planet at the moment, seems 13 of 14 need to die & join the compost heap. I'd asked the ecofreak if he was volunteering to be one of the first into the compost heap. He told me 'Of course not, they need me to show them the way'. Seems I hear similar things from any of the econutters out there; they're the only ones who can save us from ourselves as long as we do what they say.
I say, compost 'em first.
wow (Score:3, Informative)
First off, "carrying capacity" estimates are all over the map. True, 0.5B may be the "low impact" carrying capacity, but even that's not a zero-impact - according to something I saw on TV, we have archaeological evidence that pre-Columbian Americans ruined fisheries and caused other localized environmental damage.
Second off, even if we were beyond capacity, the answer lies in encouraging low birth rates without resorting to China-esque techniques, more responsible stewardship of the natural resources we ha
Re:I think they did it (Score:4, Informative)
KRKO only broadcast local sports, no political programming whatsoever. I feel compelled to add: "you gigantic idiot."
You could have spent 5 seconds looking that up, you know. It's not like the radio station's format is classified. Hey look, they even have a website: http://www.krko.com/ [krko.com]