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SPRAWL SEA
Every new house in Oconee County will cost
the county more in services, more, in fact,
than that house will bring in in taxes ["Oconee
Sprawl," Letters, Aug. 15]. Oconee County is go
ing to drown in a red ink sea. Oh well, too bad
for them; I live outside the county.
Wayne
from Flagpole.com
TOFU BABY AGAIN
Please stop publishing Missy Kulik's cartoon.
How can an intelligent alternate newspaper like
the Flagpole really support something of this
caliber? Can someone please tell her that she is
neither cute nor witty, and no one gives a shit
about her mindless comic? It makes me not want
to read the Flagpole anymore.
Elisha Conrad
Email
ROBOT FISH?
In the Harper's Magazine (September 2007)
which arrived today, in the finding section (page
100) which enumerates the various scientific dis
coveries and findings recently announced, there
were two chilling announcements which concern
the coming robot war:
1.) Lockheed Martin announced that its MULE
(Multifunction Utility/ Logistics and Equipment)
robot managed to climb a 30-inch step and cross
a 70-inch-wide ravine using only its native self-
awareness.
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2.) Taser International will soon be installing
stun guns on robots.
The plain facts stated here are concerning
enough. Soon there will be Taser-armed robots
able to climb over fences and jump over gorges
as they chase humans down, but even more chill
ing is the line nearly thrown away: native self-
awareness.
Self-awareness is similar to sentience, and
sentience is the one attribute which separates
humans from non-humans. Robots, in other
words, are beginning to think for themselves.
How long will it take them to realize that
Humans are a threat to
their existence? How
long after that realiza
tion will it take for
the robots to decide
to eliminate human
ity? Remember, they
can make trillions of
decisions a minute and
they have no moral
sense. My guess is not
long.
We must all prepare for this in our own way.
Harper's also reported that Piranha attacks
were up in Brazil, but I doubt this has much to
do with robots.
George Severn
Lexington
MARKETING WAR
President Bush's use this year of the name Al
Qaeda, in speech after speech up to dozens of
times in each address, shows more and more his
dependence, his need for a well-known name, a
popular brand, with which to sell his war. Like a
marketing team that has labeled a product, he
and his loyalists have repeated the name again
and again.
As a product, the war has delivered little of
value at inestimable cost. Many regard it our na
tion's worst foreign policy blunder. Bush asks his
critics to let history judge. Time will tell, sooner
than later, just how disastrous the effort has
been.
The current insistence on labeling the enemy
in Iraq as Al Qaeda reflects a complete aban
donment of the original, intentionally false and
misleading reasons
for launching the war.
Now we are told that
the same group that
attacked our soil on
9/11/01 is "making its
stand" on Iraqi soil.
Such a story is pure
fantasy, even more
unreal than the earlier
insistence that Saddam
Hussein somehow
represented a threat. In reality, the shadowy, dis
integrated groups that lay claim to the name Al
Qaeda are in no way as organized as Bush would
have us believe. They lack leadership, they lack a
national home, and they lack a coherent message
or ideology, much less any semblance of strategy.
We are told that our enemy expounds and
would spread afar an "ideology of hatred." We are
told that the current struggle being staged on
Iraq's trodden and weary soil is a clash of ideas
and is of epochal importance. If truly we engage
in a struggle of ideology, then would not words
be the weapons of choice over bombs, tanks,
troops and bullets? By resorting to violence, do
we not mimic the other side's ways and their
mindless, murderous tactics?
Even our military leaders assert that the only
path to anything like "victory," to anything like
a "cessation of hostilities" is political and dip
lomatic. Did not the Vietnam War show that no
amount of outside military might can "crush" an
indigenous insurgency?
Having failed to learn, we are doomed to
repeat.
Jim Baird
Comer
ON THE HILL
I was one of almost 100 unpaid movie ex
tras that was on the set of The Hill ["Hollywood
Comes to Athens," Aug. 8]. The hours were long,
7 a.m. to 7 p.m. for day scenes and from 7:30
p.m. to 7 a.m. for night scenes. First you wait
an hour or more while they set up the scene or
are shooting one. They come to you and place
you on the set and give you instructions. Then
they rehearse the scene before they cut and print
what they like. It gets boring sometimes and you
sweat if it's hot or you can get cold if it's chilly.
The best thing about being an extra is the
nice people you meet while you are sitting or
standing around between shoots. We had a
wonderful time talking and laughing and getting
to know one another. The food supplied by Lee
Epting Catering was to die for; we had breakfast,
lunch and diner, plus all the snacks and drinks
all day or night. I made lots of new friends and
would do it over again any time I am called on
the set.
Joe Ramirez
Athens
BUMPERSTICKER OF THE WEEK:
All Men Are Animals,
Some Just Make Better Pets
Thanks, Rick. Send sightings to ben@ -
flagpole.com or70&549-9523.
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4 FLAGPOLE.COM • AUGUST 22,2007
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