[aprssig] RE: APRS for One-Laptop-Per-Child

[Mark Fellhauer]

At 07:24 PM 11/11/2007, Ray McKnight wrote:

>One laptop for every child on the planet.
>I have strong words which I cannot use.
>Other than utterly LUDICRIOUS!

Ray,

How do you really feel about this project?


>There are tens of millions of children in the US alone without health care.
>Worldwide, the number is staggering.  But let's give them a computer.
>
>What about:
>* at least one decent meal a day
>* an education
>* a SAFE and adequate place to live, sleep, etc..
>* a government not focused on power, wealth and self interests

I don't think those goals are achievable given the nature of man.

LET'S FOCUS ON GIVING TROOPS IN IRAQ THOSE $1.57 MILLION DOLLAR HUMMERS
>INSTEAD.  Raise the kids, teach 'em to fight and dominate the world, them
>squander our money on arms.  That's the American way...

I would rather our troops be in a real armored vehicle like an updated 
Gavin rather than the death-trap Stryker.  But you can thank Shinseki and 
Cheney for making our military "lighter and faster" but much more 
vulnerable.  It was Bush Sr. and Cheney who put our troops in Mogadishu 
with no armored vehicles...  I'm just glad the Malaysians had Condor APC's 
to save our butts.

I have friends and relatives in harm's way in Afghanistan and Iraq right 
now.  All volunteers and all believe they are there HELPING those countries 
and making them a better place.    I have a picture of one of my cousins 
handing out MRE's to little children in Baghdad.   I wonder how many 
Iraqi's Ray has fed this week?

Anyhow it amazes me how many Americans are down on America when you look at 
the crap going on all over the world.  40 years of continuous civil war in 
Africa.  Much of Central and South America essentially a lawless 
wild-west.   Rampant street crime in much of Urban Europe.   It makes the 
U.S. look pretty darn good.   And I know many people who blame all the 
world's problems on the U.S. manipulation and the CIA.  Yeah, the CIA is 
making people rob banks in Brazil with jelly jars of gasoline, the U.S. 
Government is behind British street toughs robbing people stuck in their 
cars in traffic using claw hammers, and George Bush is making Muslim rebels 
hack off the arms of children in Sierra Leone.   I don't know who in the 
U.S. is responsible for highwaymen in Italy shooting little kids in the 
head, but someone in Washington D.C. is causing that...

I can walk down the street in San Marcos, CA without fear.  I can leave my 
windows open at night.  I have one lock on my front door.  When I lost my 
job and health insurance a few years back I got sick and had to go to the 
hospital  -  did they deny me health care?  No.   I was given access to CAT 
scans, surgery, and state-of-the-art equipment.   Which is more than I can 
say for some Canadians I know who have been left to their national heath 
care system.   MP Belinda Stronach gets common breast cancer - goes to U.S. 
for surgery.    I think that says it all.

I know that Scott Miller pointed out radios can disseminate 
information.  But radio stations are the first thing that get taken over or 
destroyed in a banana republic.  One thing that a distributed network does 
is decentralize information collection and reportage.  It makes it much 
harder for a government to exert control over a populace.

Just some food for the conspiracy theorists out there.  OLPC is the 
brainchild of Nicholas Negroponte.  His brother is John Negroponte, the 
current United States Deputy Secretary of State.  John Negroponte went to 
Yale and was in the same fraternity as George W. Bush's uncle as well as 
Porter Goss, who recently served as the director of the CIA!

OMG!  Ray, the OLPC is a CIA plot to dominate the world!  It's the new ECHELON!

Mark
KC7BXS