Bees, anyone?

[Billy]

Mosquitos too.

[Nad R]

After googling, I learned something new. I thought bats were for bug control only.

But it does explain an odd thing in my life. While weening my transplants in early spring. I brought my plants inside when the weather got below 40 degrees. After bring in one pot of flowers inside. I saw a bat crawl out from the pot inside the house. AHHHHH!!!!!!!! I quickly put a clear plastic bowl over it. It was screaming and I could see it's teeth as it looked me straight in the eyes! By looking at me in the eyes, it seemed to have some basic intelligence.

I still hate mosquitoes, even if they can pollinate some plants, which is something I did not know.

So then, it is a myth that, without out bees we would loose our food pollinated crops?

[jellybean stonerfish]

Different crops need different pollinators.

[Billy]

Twelve  years ago, Doppler radar was developed to the point that bat activity can be detected some two miles above the earth. A scan of an area around Austin, Texas, clearly showed a swarm of moths that attracted a horde of bats some 200 million strong, spurring the latter into a feeding frenzy. At the end of the massacre, all traces of activity eerily ceased. The farmer who owned the fields in question was left with a hefty supply of bat guano, much better for his crops ? and the environment ? than the pesticides he would otherwise have had to use to deter or destroy the moth threat.

This was among the most-jaw dropping tidbits proffered on Aug. 27 at an otherwise routine meeting of the Rotary Club of Sonoma Valley held at the Lodge at Sonoma.  Patricia Winters ? aka Bat Maam ? frequently makes the rounds of civic organizations and other groups to spread the good word on bats.

[Nad R]

frequently makes

All in all, it does sense. I did know that pesky bugs are attracted to specific plants and ignore the others. I know now it is true for the many of the bugs are specifically attracted to specific plants for pollination. Still I have a feeling bees do the most of the pollination. In some of my books, list almost a hundred flowering plants that bees like. I suspect list is much larger.

I learned something new today or at least ordered existing information in my brain a little better. So today was a good day.

[Higgs Boson]

Surely you jest! It is not a myth; it is hard science.

HB

[Billy]

You were up at 3:31 AM? Or is that my time, and you were up at 5:31 AM? Watchew doing, running a dairy?

[Nad R]

I am retired and now live like a cat. When tired I sleep or take a nap. I no longer live by the clock. However, I do tend to the animals, I do let them out at daybreak feed them and lock them up at dusk. The dog wanted out that night and I probably was up at that time 3:31 AM.

I am also typing this usenet message while I am still in bed, lying on my back, iPad on my chest, listing to the local news radio just before I let the animals out.

Since I got this iPad, I find my life has changed allot. I find myself attached to it almost 24/7. It is my iPod music player, Internet radio and local HD radio that can pickup 24 thousand radio stations and play them on the wireless stereo speakers, email, book reader, weather alert, news paper, news reader, drawing pad, night time star mapping guide, I now easily keep journals of gardening and other activities. I now keep track of exercise time, diet and blood pressure, I watch my TV shows and movies on it, remote control for tv, remote control for home home heating and lighting, remote control for my main computer as well, cooking recipes, alarm clock ( take garbage out , because I am loosing track of what day it is ). I pay my bills with it and reminds me when they are due, my GPS for driving and going places.

And yesterday I found out that my favorite garden show that was cancelled a while back called "Garden By The Yard" is now on Internet TV. COOL!

Asimov's world is becoming reality. People will no longer meet in person, they will meet via computer in their own little virtual world while the population drops to nothing... Cool.

Can't wait when the iPad 2 comes out with the dual cameras... Video conferencing at finger tips as well. It will be really neat when they perfect the computer controlled contact lenses and then we will not need to carry such devices :) Well to be honest I do not care about the iPad 2 because I really have no wish to see anyone I know.

I am Borg :)

[Billy]

It doesn't bother you that some government/corporate type can look at the key strokes of your life to determine what kind of consumer you are, or whether you are a good citizen?

[Bill who putters]

When computers were just becoming personal I read A whole earth magazine entitled "Computers as poison" this from Steward Band and friends. One maxim learned was not to fall in love with your machine. Seems easier quoted then actualized.

[Nad R]

They know everything about what you type here as well. Big Brother and little Brother knows also. I have stated before, privacy is history, even the government knows this for themselves, just read the Wikileaks. They know what you read, been to google books, amazon, even what you eat. Buy your seeds online? Do you use those grocery cards? During 911 every grocery store had to give the names of everyone that purchased humus, an arabic food, the grocery stores complied. Hundreds arrested afterwords. Privacy is history. Even those VPN accounts are an illusion of privacy on the web. And with Wikileaks I can know what they do as well. All is even.

I have been broken. I love the ministry of peace. Like in the novel 1984, the last sentence, "I learned to love Big Brother".

[Higgs Boson]

**During 911 every grocery

I tried to find this on Snopes, as it sounded exactly like the kind of urban legend that Snopes so helpfully debunks. In any event, hummus is also a quintessentially Israeli food, so when can I expect that knock on the door...?

HB

[...]

[Nad R]

I remember this well, it was the news almost everyday, especially in Dearborn Michigan's farmer jack stores, which went out of business because of this. People stopped shopping there. All grocery stores stopped handing out those cards in Michigan. However memories are short and the grocery cards are back at Krogers. Their is no such thing as privacy. Try google instead or are you afraid of the big bad wolf keeping track of what you search. Now body is shaking.

?az=view_all&address=389x2245313

[Billy]

Oh, you retired types are all the same. You suddenly go conservative ;O)

I was rather hoping for more of a "Brave New World" kind of a future, not an "1984".

[Billy]

3 AM seems to be the consensus.

[FarmI]

Excuse my scepticism, but are you pulling our collective legs? I know the US does some unbelievable daft things in the name of security, but having to give one's name in order to buy humus is just so incedibly silly, that I find it hard to believe.

Can you provide a cite for that?

[FarmI]

>

can't find anything of substance using google. All I can find is conspiracy theory - rumours, innuendo, derivative.

Has any US agency of government actaully admitted anything or is it just something 'everyone' supposedly 'knows'?

[Billy]

The large stores here will give you a small discount on your grocery purchases, if you have a card from their store. The card is bar coded and directs the purchases of your sale to your own personal database. The database is of course for sale, so that when someone decides to sell widgets, there is a data base of previous widget buyers, and advertiser can aim their advertising at you. I don't use them, Admiral Poindexter can find out about me the hard way.

[FarmI]

Yes, I understand that, however do you have a (semi-)reputable cite about the humus buyers?

I know that information from buying activites can be collected and analysed and that there may be some value in trying to identify people by purchases, but the commitment of resources to such a potentially futile exercise is probably beyond the tolerance for wastage of even a profligate administration.

I also think that it would be unlikely that human resources with sufficient sense would be available to do such a job even if the funding was there. It's low level work but requires competent analytical skills.

You know how few people there are who post on usenet who can read a sentence and analyse a few simple clauses in order to understand what's been said. If the bulk of usenet posters is in any way representative of the pool of talent in the general poupulace such a project would be very dangerous to try to conduct.

It'd be a nightmare to oversight even if it did happen and I still have doubts that it did happen. There should be some sniff online if it did take place because there are implications of racial profiling and the potential for claims of victimisation based on purchasing. It'd be a minefiled and something that would be hard to hide and perhaps even more so in an environment of constant conspiracy theories.

[Nad R]

I have a dozen or more of the cards, the cards do not have my real name or address and I still get the discounts. The stores want your money and never check ID. The stores that do not use the cards hands out deals just as good as those that do. However, the same information is now on any credit card used. So those discount cards today are not really needed. Also your picture is taken with every purchase. Cash is still king, but for how long?

I also do my taxes by hand. I think by law, the government cannot sell your personal information but corporations can. Tax agencies that perform taxes online and those computer programs also sells your tax information to the advertisers. Read the fine print on those tax software programs. Years ago those money management software programs could also send your personal financial information over the Internet without your knowledge, if you did not have a good firewall. They embedded the tracking software in the security tracks of ones hard drive that could not be erased even by reformatting the drive.

Go back and look at the links I provided. A least seven hundred people was detained from data mining after 9/11, no jury, no judge and no trial for a month or two. Do you want the links reposted about this?

Even during World War II, the U.S. Detained Japanese for many months without a judge, jury or trail. Like I said in previous post, the US constitution states " For the Corporation by the Corporation". President Bush shredded that older document years ago. Privacy is history get use to it.

As an atheist, can't wait for the mark of the beast 666 to be imbedded into my soul. Also for the squeamish, the mark of the beast is already on everything you buy. It is part of the UPC code. Two thin bars on each end and a two thin bar in the center. The thin bars represent 666.