THE "CHATBOX"

A place to relax and socialize - to muse, think aloud and suggest
hoi.polloi
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Re: THE "CHATBOX"

Unread post by hoi.polloi »

And the other whirligigs are just decorative options - like the film icon or exclamation icon, etc.
lux
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Re: THE "CHATBOX"

Unread post by lux »

Having lots of trouble connecting to the server over last couple days. Error message 503.
bostonterrierowner
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Re: THE "CHATBOX"

Unread post by bostonterrierowner »

Same here
simonshack
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Re: THE "CHATBOX"

Unread post by simonshack »

lux wrote:Having lots of trouble connecting to the server over last couple days. Error message 503.
Sigh...yes - same here. I've sent two complaints to our hosting site in the last 48hours. So far, they have only acknowledged the receipt of my 2 complaints (via automatic form-mails) - but no 'human' explanation for the downtimes has been forthcoming.

Again, I think we will have to migrate to another hosting site as soon as we can - as much as I dislike interrupting the continuity of this forum's presence on the internets. Hopefully, our move to another hosting site will be as smooth and trouble-free as possible.
TrutherInTX
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Re: THE "CHATBOX"

Unread post by TrutherInTX »

simonshack wrote:
lux wrote:Having lots of trouble connecting to the server over last couple days. Error message 503.
Sigh...yes - same here. I've sent two complaints to our hosting site in the last 48hours. So far, they have only acknowledged the receipt of my 2 complaints (via automatic form-mails) - but no 'human' explanation for the downtimes has been forthcoming.

Again, I think we will have to migrate to another hosting site as soon as we can - as much as I dislike interrupting the continuity of this forum's presence on the internets. Hopefully, our move to another hosting site will be as smooth and trouble-free as possible.
Likewise from Dallas, TX. I get Server Unavailable. It happened most of the day today.
fbenario
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Re: THE "CHATBOX"

Unread post by fbenario »

Hoi commented about a month ago that America had lost much of its forest land, and I pointed out that over the last 200 years a huge amount of American forest has regrown. Now we have some more good news, with evidence that a great deal of American wildlife is massively increasing its numbers, so much so that it has become a nuisance to everyday life in much of the country.
America Gone Wild

The good news: Wildlife populations in the U.S. have experienced an astonishing resurgence.

The bad news: All those animals are now our neighbors.

Welcome to the nature wars, in which Americans fight each other over too much of a good thing—expanding wildlife populations produced by our conservation and environmental successes. We now routinely encounter wild birds and animals that our parents and grandparents rarely saw. As their numbers have grown, wild creatures have spread far beyond their historic ranges into new habitats, including ours. It is very likely that in the eastern United States today more people live in closer proximity to more wildlife than anywhere on Earth at any time in history.

In a world full of eco-woes like species extinctions, this should be wonderful news—unless, perhaps, you are one of more than 4,000 drivers who will hit a deer today, or your child's soccer field is carpeted with goose droppings, or feral cats have turned your bird feeder into a fast-food outlet, or wild turkeys have eaten your newly planted seed corn, or beavers have flooded your driveway, or bears are looting your trash cans. And that's just the beginning.

In just a few decades we have turned a wildlife comeback miracle into a mess that's getting messier, and costlier. How did this happen? The simple answer: Forests grew back over the past two centuries, wildlife came back over the past century and people sprawled across the landscape over the past half-century.

Reforestation began in 19th-century New England, when farmers started abandoning marginal pastures and buying cheap feed grain from the rich, relatively flat lands on the other end of the newly opened Erie Canal. Later, petroleum-based fertilizers and gasoline-powered machinery made Midwestern farming more productive and draft animals obsolete, freeing up 70 million acres that were being used to feed them. Many farmers, meanwhile, opted for jobs in town. Trees took back much of their land and, after World War II, nonfarmers began moving onto it.

Today, the eastern third of the country has the largest forest in the contiguous U.S., as well as two-thirds of its people. Since the 19th century, forests have grown back to cover 60% of the land within this area. In New England, an astonishing 86.7% of the land that was forested in 1630 had been reforested by 2007, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Not since the collapse of Mayan civilization 1,200 years ago has reforestation on this scale happened in the Americas, says David Foster, director of the Harvard Forest, an ecology research unit of Harvard University. In 2007, forests covered 63.2% of Massachusetts and 58% of Connecticut, the third and fourth most densely populated states in the country, not counting forested suburban and exurban sprawl (though a lot of sprawl has enough trees to be called a real forest if people and their infrastructure weren't there).

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... P_review_0
hoi.polloi
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Re: THE "CHATBOX"

Unread post by hoi.polloi »

If memory serves, I was hinting that we were losing pure nature and my intent was not to specifically refer to forest land. Sorry if I did. However, my contention is with the physical health of our wildlife choked with pollutants and so forth. This article actually points out some of my concerns, even though its position is rather bizarre if it isn't read as strictly tongue-in-cheek. It's equating the feral cats killing birds and animals being attracted to our garbage as some of the better definitions of 'wildlife'?

I'd rather read about dioxin, fracking, landfills and GMO issues. There won't be a shortage of rural Americans who love to shoot at things any time soon. Don't worry about them, fbenario.
fbenario
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Re: THE "CHATBOX"

Unread post by fbenario »

hoi.polloi wrote:If memory serves, I was hinting that we were losing pure nature and my intent was not to specifically refer to forest land. Sorry if I did. However, my contention is with the physical health of our wildlife choked with pollutants and so forth.
...
I'd rather read about dioxin, fracking, landfills and GMO issues.
You're right, of course, all of these issues are much more important; I just wanted to post a little bit of good news about how America's flora and fauna are in some ways regenerating over long periods of time. Although if this regeneration brings coyotes into close proximity with much of suburbia it is certainly not an unalloyed good thing.

By the way, three years ago, at my partner's house on the more rural eastern side of Athens, GA, I heard a noise on the back-deck one morning while eating breakfast. When I looked outside, I saw two coyote pups gamboling and frolicking about with each other.

They then managed to break a plant-holder.
Last edited by fbenario on Fri Dec 14, 2012 1:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
lux
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Re: THE "CHATBOX"

Unread post by lux »

Coyotes are not that unusual in the Los Angeles area. I just saw one a few weeks ago crossing a 4-lane street near my house in the early hours. I also once saw one on Hollywood Blvd around 3am and have seen them numerous times in other nearby areas, even running across freeways. They are a nuisance in some LA areas, stealing pets and pet food. In my LA neighborhood skunks and raccoons are frequently seen pests and a neighbor around the corner from me had a mountain lion in his back yard a few years ago. The place became a circus of LAPD and news media all trying to get a glimpse of it (it got away). There is a known mountain lion currently living in LA's Griffith Park which is a large city park located between Hollywood and Burbank (you've seen it in movies and TV shows). I live in the northern part of LA, a few miles from Griffith Park and the northern "edge of civilization." Beyond are wilderness areas such as the Angeles National Forest and the San Gabriel Mountains, home to all sorts of critters.
sublimity
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Re: THE "CHATBOX"

Unread post by sublimity »

Great, another shooting psyop. This time, it's in my neck of the woods - Portland, OR. Despite them producing more fakey "amateur" cell phone footage for this psyop, it still has the same overall look & feel of the other lame lone gunman psyops as of late.

There's even a visual call-back thrown in with the "Century" theater sign :rolleyes:

Portland:
Image

Aurora:
Image
Alfie
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Re: THE "CHATBOX"

Unread post by Alfie »

fbenario wrote:gamboling
What a fantastic word, thanks fb, never heard of it before. I shall be using that several times today :)
icarusinbound
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Re: THE "CHATBOX"

Unread post by icarusinbound »

Alfie wrote:
fbenario wrote:gamboling
What a fantastic word, thanks fb, never heard of it before. I shall be using that several times today :)
It's also a nice inversion of fauna- previously for me, it's always been the prey that gambols, happy lambs to the slaughter, not the predators. But, hey, anyone or anything can safely gambol once in a while, you can bet on that.

This now calls for some Pink Floyd, 'Animals', silently blasted through a pair of Sennheisers...
hoi.polloi
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Re: THE "CHATBOX"

Unread post by hoi.polloi »

I feel I can honestly say I'm not all that concerned about wild animals killing people. We are far more effective at doing it ourselves, not to mention all the life systems we are connected to.

I like your point though - very optimistic! - and I appreciate the message. Thanks. Hope you are feeling better lately.
Alfie
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Re: THE "CHATBOX"

Unread post by Alfie »

I'm having real trouble accessing this forum sometimes! Whats going on or is it my computer?

If it does go down shall we meet at reality shack, is there a plan for a takedown?
brianv
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Re: THE "CHATBOX"

Unread post by brianv »

Alfie wrote:I'm having real trouble accessing this forum sometimes! Whats going on or is it my computer?

If it does go down shall we meet at reality shack, is there a plan for a takedown?
No Alfie, there appears to be some efforts underway to shut us up! Not your computer. The Admins are trying to resolve the issue.
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