Shall the citizens of the Habitats have the right to bear arms in
order to prtect their property and to counterbalance the power of
their government?

What are the unique circumstances of a Habitat that would make the
above proposition less likely to occur?

TangoMan

victoriatangoman wrote:
(...)
> What are the unique circumstances of a Habitat that would make the
> above proposition less likely to occur?
(...)

The first thing that come to my mind was a "problem" outlined in Babylon
5: people wouldn't use guns inside a space station because it could
puncture the pressure hull and kill everyone; instead they used plasma
guns that were supposed to just burn people, instead of making holes in
them.

But of course in real space habitats the "problem" will likely be
non-existant for two reasons:

- The habitat is likely to be involved by a thick passive radiation
shielding, and guns wouldn't be able to puncture that.
- Even if you have, for instance, a non-rotating shield and a thin
pressure hull surrounded by vacuum, given the size of a habitat a bullet
hole would not produce a catastrophic decompression; indeed it could
take weeks for some perceptible change in pressure occur, and at that
time the hole would have been patched in a (hopefully) trivial
maintenance operation. (On the other hand, it is better to *prevent*
hull punctures than to remedy ones...)

So, I can't see the "Babylon 5 problem" as something that serious. On
the other hand, here are other gun-related problems that I think to be
more realistic:

- Shooting to the "sky" would not be a safe option, because you could
hurt people in the other side of the habitat (depending on the
design/radius).
- Precise aiming is likely to be very difficult because of Coriolis and
other pseudo forces.

Ok, using guns in a habitat is increasingly looking a bad idea. Perhaps
those plasma guns are not that bad after all. Or, if plasma/ray guns are
not viable for some reason, we can always use swords, axes, hammers and
other charming medieval weapons. :-)

Lucio Coelho

> From: victoriatangoman [mailto:tango_dancer@...]

> Shall the citizens of the Habitats have the right to bear arms in
> order to prtect their property and to counterbalance the power of
> their government?
>
> What are the unique circumstances of a Habitat that would make the
> above proposition less likely to occur?

Considerations in no particular order:
Habitat environments are going to be much more controlled and more closely monitored, for safety reasons. The air at the very least will be monitored by a police state. And since guns produce fumes, so will you if you fire one. On the other hand the whole colony (at least early ones) are going to be obscenely vulnerable to comparably simple sabotage it's hard to see how an effective police state would function. Unless they had those nasty Gundams to back them up...

The american forefathers didn't foresee the consequences of allowing citizens to own weapons capable of hurting the military, and it's highly unlikely a future colony constitution is gong to make the same dumb mistake. Again though, they don't need to. With simple common tools like orbital transfer modules and solar power satellites with 10GW 'power transfer 'lasers', why would a government, citizen or terrorist want or fear guns?

John

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Lucio de Souza Coelho
wrote:

> - Precise aiming is likely to be very difficult because of
Coriolis and
> other pseudo forces.

Let's say that you're a police officer and shoot your gun at a
criminal, but the coriolis force is so strong that the bullet
doesn't go where you aimed it and instead hits a innocent citizen.
Hello law suits!

Do you think that with enough training that coriolis compensation
could be factored into the aiming process? For instance, to hit your
target at 200 meters, aim 5 meters over their head and 10 meters to
your right.

Damn, that would really look odd in a cops & robbers movie set in a
Habitat. You know the kind, the fish out of water type. Like Arnold
playing a Russian cop in "Red Heat", or Jackie Chan in "Rush Hour."
We get some L.A. cop to come up to the Habitat and he needs to shoot
his gun but his local partner stops him and says to aim at the
little girl and her mother if he wants to hit the fleeing felon on
the other side of the park :) Ripe for comedy.

TangoMan

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "ANTIcarrot"
wrote:
Unless they had those nasty Gundams to back them up...

What's a Gundam?

TangoMan

victoriatangoman wrote:
(...)
> Damn, that would really look odd in a cops & robbers movie set in a
> Habitat. You know the kind, the fish out of water type. Like Arnold
> playing a Russian cop in "Red Heat", or Jackie Chan in "Rush Hour."
> We get some L.A. cop to come up to the Habitat and he needs to shoot
> his gun but his local partner stops him and says to aim at the
> little girl and her mother if he wants to hit the fleeing felon on
> the other side of the park :) Ripe for comedy.

And then you would have a lot of Matrix-like FX showing the bullet in
slow motion rippling through the air in a weird curved trajectory. :-)

> TangoMan
(...)

Lucio

victoriatangoman wrote:
(...)
> What's a Gundam?

See http://www.gundamofficial.com/

Apparently it is an anime passed in a distant future where part of
Humanity lives in space habitats. The Gundam fighters are mech-suited
guys, it seems. I have never seen one episode of this...

> TangoMan
(...)

Lucio

On Wednesday, October 29, 2003, at 01:09 PM, victoriatangoman wrote:

> Shall the citizens of the Habitats have the right to bear arms in
> order to prtect their property and to counterbalance the power of
> their government?

Not in my colony. You're welcome to have them in yours.

>
> What are the unique circumstances of a Habitat that would make the
> above proposition less likely to occur?

Many countries, most with low violent crime rates, have low levels of
gun ownership. I suggest looking at them.

>
> TangoMan
>

Space tourism could be our ticket to the stars. Save your pennies,
suborbital flights for $100,000 may start in 2005! See
http://www.spaceadventures.com/suborbital for details.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Al Globus wrote:
>
> On Wednesday, October 29, 2003, at 01:09 PM, victoriatangoman
>
> > Shall the citizens of the Habitats have the right to bear arms in
> > order to prtect their property and to counterbalance the power of
> > their government?
>
> Not in my colony. You're welcome to have them in yours.
>
> > What are the unique circumstances of a Habitat that would make
the
> > above proposition less likely to occur?
>
> Many countries, most with low violent crime rates, have low levels
of
> gun ownership. I suggest looking at them.
>
> > TangoMan

If you're an American, this issue is near and dear to about 1/2 of
the population! What makes you think that the NRA advocates are
going to capitulate on this issue if the Habitat is an off-shoot of
American culture and society?

If the Habitat isn't strictly American, then other societies that
aren't as wedded to the gun culture will probably influence the
design of the new orbital society.

I could see the NRA fans loving the idea of long range skeet
shooting where you can count on the bullet going for hundreds of
miles without deviation effects from gravity or air resistance. The
only limit will be the marksman's skills in aiming (spotting a
target so far away), tracking, and keeping still as they fire.
They'd love to be able to fire their gun in space, place it down,
grab a beer, sit down, pick up the binoculars, locate the target,
and then wait for it to be destroyed!

TangoMan

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Lucio de Souza Coelho .> wrote:
> victoriatangoman wrote:
> (...)
> > What's a Gundam?
>
> See http://www.gundamofficial.com/
>
> Apparently it is an anime passed in a distant future where part of
> Humanity lives in space habitats. The Gundam fighters are
mech-suited
> guys, it seems. I have never seen one episode of this...
>
> > TangoMan
> (...)
>
> Lucio

My brother saw the ending. He downloaded "Final Impressition."

I think there is a site about Gundam and Space Habitats.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "ANTIcarrot"
wrote:
> The american forefathers didn't foresee the consequences of
allowing citizens to own weapons capable of hurting the military,
and it's highly unlikely a future colony constitution is gong to
make the same dumb mistake.

Actually, that was precisely what they foresaw. That's why that
amendment is in the constitution in the first place, a final
check/balance against corrupt government.

Ed

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Al Globus wrote:
>
> On Wednesday, October 29, 2003, at 01:09 PM, victoriatangoman
>
> > Shall the citizens of the Habitats have the right to bear arms in
> > order to prtect their property and to counterbalance the power of
> > their government?
>
> Not in my colony. You're welcome to have them in yours.
>

Good luck defending your colony against those that do.

> >
> > What are the unique circumstances of a Habitat that would make
the
> > above proposition less likely to occur?
>
> Many countries, most with low violent crime rates, have low levels
of
> gun ownership. I suggest looking at them.
>

Canada has a higher per-capita rate of gun ownership than the USA.
Switzerland's rate of gun ownership is even higher, approaching
100%. Violent crime rates in Britain and Australia skyrocketed
following their introduction of gun-control laws (as now the
potential victims were defenceless against criminals who don't give
a damn about such laws). And finally, Nazi Germany had extremely
strict gun-control laws.

Ed

> >
> > TangoMan
> >
----
> > ~->
> >
-----
> ---------------------
> Space tourism could be our ticket to the stars. Save your
pennies,
> suborbital flights for $100,000 may start in 2005! See
> http://www.spaceadventures.com/suborbital for details.
>
> Al Globus
> CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
> http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html
>
> Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not
the

--- In spacesettlers, "Ed Minchau" wrote:

> --- In spacesettlers, Al Globus wrote:

>> On Wednesday, October 29, 2003, at 01:09 PM, victoriatangoman
>> wrote:

>>> Shall the citizens of the Habitats have the right to bear arms in
>>> order to prtect their property and to counterbalance the power of
>>> their government?

>> Not in my colony. You're welcome to have them in yours.

> Good luck defending your colony against those that do.

Defend against whom? My .45, 9 mm, Barret .50, tommy gun, whatever,
isn't going to do much while the enemy is out in space. I need to
hope that there is a *real* defense force to stop that. If the
invader gets into the habitat, it's all over. It's not likely that
the citizenry will have guns AND armor AND gas masks AND faraday
suits AND... but you get the idea. Jed Clampet and his trusty
shotgun ain't'a gonna help.

Besides, why steal my habitat when you can build your own, and not
worry about getting shot at or poked with sharp sticks? In the
process of taking my habitat from me by force, you're liable to
damage it so much that it will no longer be worth having (if we don't
blow it up ourselves just to spite).

>>> What are the unique circumstances of a Habitat that would make
>>> the above proposition less likely to occur?

Concerns mentioned elsewhere.

>> Many countries, most with low violent crime rates, have low levels
>> of gun ownership. I suggest looking at them.

> Canada has a higher per-capita rate of gun ownership than the USA.
> Switzerland's rate of gun ownership is even higher, approaching
> 100%. Violent crime rates in Britain and Australia skyrocketed
> following their introduction of gun-control laws (as now the
> potential victims were defenceless against criminals who don't give
> a damn about such laws). And finally, Nazi Germany had extremely
> strict gun-control laws.
>
> Ed

I'd have to take a closer look at Canada and Switzerland before I
could comment on them (the low violent crime rates might be due to
high levels of gun ownership, or to something else). I know that
Japan has both strong gun control and low rates of violent crime.
But what you say about Britain and Australia also bears looking
into. Perhaps in some societies, strong gun control encourages
violent crime, while in others it does not. I understand that in
Sweden, the teenagers have even more sex than American teens do, and
that would explain the lack of Columbine-type events in that
country. The teens have better things to do.

I'm going to be just snide enough to ask if Nazi Germany had much
violent crime (other than that committed by its own [guns-a-plenty]
government), but really, that was such an aberrant society that it
has little relevance to the "real world."

Xenophile (not a gun nut, but not a gun-hater)

--- In spacesettlers, "victoriatangoman" wrote:

> --- In spacesettlers, Lucio de Souza Coelho wrote:

>> - Precise aiming is likely to be very difficult because of
>> Coriolis and other pseudo forces.

> Let's say that you're a police officer and shoot your gun at a
> criminal, but the coriolis force is so strong that the bullet
> doesn't go where you aimed it and instead hits a innocent citizen.
> Hello law suits!
>
> Do you think that with enough training that coriolis compensation
> could be factored into the aiming process? For instance, to hit
> your target at 200 meters, aim 5 meters over their head and 10
> meters to your right.

Smartguns that adjust the crosshairs automatically?

> Damn, that would really look odd in a cops & robbers movie set in a
> Habitat. You know the kind, the fish out of water type. Like Arnold
> playing a Russian cop in "Red Heat", or Jackie Chan in "Rush
> Hour."

I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see some hard science fiction movies set in
the High Frontier! Cop, spy, romantic comedy, I don't care!

> We get some L.A. cop to come up to the Habitat and he needs to
> shoot his gun but his local partner stops him and says to aim at
> the little girl and her mother if he wants to hit the fleeing felon
> on the other side of the park :) Ripe for comedy.

And if Jackie Chan is in it, we can have zero-G martial arts.

> TangoMan

Xenophile (who wishes he had the talent and sticktuitiveless to write
this movie)

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophile"
wrote:

>
> Besides, why steal my habitat when you can build your own, and not
> worry about getting shot at or poked with sharp sticks?

Because taking is easier than building. Look to history for
instances of wars of conquest.

In the
> process of taking my habitat from me by force, you're liable to
> damage it so much that it will no longer be worth having (if we
don't
> blow it up ourselves just to spite).

If they can pull it off by infilitrating into your Habitat with
their guns and then rounding up all your defenseless people at
gunpoint then they'll have a whole Habitat for themselves without
having damaged it at all.

(Just jumping in as Devil's Advocate)

> I'd have to take a closer look at Canada and Switzerland before I
> could comment on them (the low violent crime rates might be due to
> high levels of gun ownership, or to something else).

Take a look at this analysis. He bravely addresses what is verboten
in polite company. He does note that people tend to look at all
factors except the one he analyzes.

http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/001234.html

I know that
> Japan has both strong gun control and low rates of violent crime.
> But what you say about Britain and Australia also bears looking
> into. Perhaps in some societies, strong gun control encourages
> violent crime, while in others it does not. I understand that in
> Sweden, the teenagers have even more sex than American teens do,
and
> that would explain the lack of Columbine-type events in that
> country. The teens have better things to do.

I'm not sure what you mean by "even more" - I can't find any
statistics on the frequency of teen sex, but I do know that American
youth start earlier.

"Myths aside, more open cultures like Sweden have the lowest rates
of teen pregnancy while the U.S.'s repressive atmosphere rewards us
with the highest rate as well as the earliest age of first
intercourse and the highest number of sexual partners. As a
strategy, the consequences of "Just Say No" do not work effectively."

http://www.skaggs-island.org/ca2020network/dubois&wright.html

The Nordic countries generally acknowledge that teens have sex
lives, that sex lives are a healthy part of the human condition,
that growing independence requires a private personal life, that
pretending your 16 year old daughter is chaste and has no impure
thoughts is a farce.

When I travel to the Holland and Denmark I'm surprised by the
contrast in teen sexuality outreach in terms of media compared to
the American "Just Say No" campaigns. The literature on the subject
makes it quite clear that the Nordic openness and acceptance of teen
sexuality leads to more responsible teen immersion into their sex
lives. Later ages of first intercourse, lower pregnancy, lower
STD, ...

Perhaps the result of this is that many construe the "even more" sex
as just more open acceptance of teen sex.

TangoMan

> From: Ed Minchau [mailto:spider_boris@...]

> Violent crime rates in Britain and Australia skyrocketed
> following their introduction of gun-control laws

Presumably the fact that the IRA is no longer buying and has forced the market to go elsewhere has naturally nothing to do with this state of affairs. Besides which, most of the illegal guns purchased in England serve to 'protect' their owners from other illegal guns. Speaking of which...

> (as now the potential victims were defenceless against criminals

When a gun is correctly aimed at you, how does possessing another gun (and one that's probably not immediately to hand) help you? If you're at home and you have a gun upstairs will its presence magically affect the flight path of the bullet a bugler fires at you? If you're walking down a dark alleyway, will its presence psychically discourage muggers attacking you?

The intent of American gun law was always to allow the public to help prevent a hostile government take over, and to allow them to hunt for food, not protect them against criminals. Both of which are largely defunct in the modern western world and a space colony.

I'm not in favour of gun-bans or guns, but taking policy to either extreme is foolish.

ANTIcarrot.

On Wednesday, October 29, 2003, at 04:26 PM, victoriatangoman wrote:

> If you're an American, this issue is near and dear to about 1/2 of
> the population! What makes you think that the NRA advocates are
> going to capitulate on this issue if the Habitat is an off-shoot of
> American culture and society?
>

I am an American, and the NRA is welcome to as many habitats as they
can build. My habitat will have few, or no, firearms, and they will be
very strictly regulated. If anyone in my habitat wants firearms, they
will be free to move to any NRA habitat that will take them. We will,
of course, have habitat defenses in case the NRA habitats get any ideas
...

The materials in one asteroid (the largest ) are sufficient to make
orbital space colonies with ~150 times the surface area of the Earth in
usable real estate. See http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/
for details.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

On Wednesday, October 29, 2003, at 09:37 PM, Ed Minchau wrote:

>> Not in my colony. You're welcome to have them [firearms] in yours.
>>
>
> Good luck defending your colony against those that do.

Firearms are useful weapons inside a habitat, but getting into a
habitat uninvited is a bit tricky (our airlock will be operated from
the inside). My habitat will, of course, have external defenses in
case the trigger-happy think its easier to take ours rather than just
build another. The nature of these defenses is TBD, but I don't see
firearms randomly distributed in the population as very useful -- just
as the widespread availability of weapons in Iraq failed to do anything
to stop the American invasion (although RPGs and land mines have been
handy for knocking off a soldier or two every couple of days since
then, these are illegal even in the US. Also, somehow I think Iraq
would be better served by other forms of resistance, and I don't like
to see our boys in body-bags).

Space tourism could be our ticket to the stars. Save your pennies,
suborbital flights for $100,000 may start in 2005! See
http://www.spaceadventures.com/suborbital for details.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

On Thursday, October 30, 2003, at 12:46 AM, Xenophile wrote:

>> Canada has a higher per-capita rate of gun ownership than the USA.
>> Switzerland's rate of gun ownership is even higher, approaching
>> 100%.

I don't know about Canada, but in Switzerland every male 18-45 is a
member of the armed forces, trains once a year, and keeps his weapon
(usually a fully automatic, true assult rifle) at home. However, if
you show up to training missing ***one*** round of ammunition you will
probably never get out of jail. The citizens of Switzerland are
heavily armed, but these arms are VERY tightly regulated. "A well
regulated militia, being necessary to the security of the state; the
right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged." How
often we forget the first clause of that sentence.

>> Violent crime rates in Britain and Australia skyrocketed
>> following their introduction of gun-control laws

Actually, the data I've seen (in The Economist) is that US violent
crime has been declining since about 1970 as measured by the murder
rate. There was one upward spike in the mid-80's (during Reagan's
term) associated not with gun control, but rather with the crack
epidemic. Do you have data and references for the assertion "Violent
crime rates in Britain and Australia skyrocketed following their
introduction of gun-control laws"?

>> (as now the
>> potential victims were defenceless against criminals who don't give
>> a damn about such laws).

This is nonsense. The number of guns in civilian hands was, and is,
almost unaffected by existing gun control laws. The Brady bill has
done a little to keep hand-guns away from the insane and criminal, but
in numbers dwarfed by the legal sale of firearms.

The International Space Station (ISS) most important legacy may be
jump-starting space tourism. Consider: the first space tourist, Dennis
Tito, was supposed to go to the Soviet era Mir space station. Under
pressure from NASA, Russia de-orbited the Mir which resulted in Mr.
Tito going to the ISS instead. Now the Mir was old, smelly, crowded and
probably not all that nice. The ISS was brand new, shinny, much more
roomy, etc. Mr. Tito came back to Earth with glowing accounts of how
great space is. Would his experience have been as good on Mir?

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

On Thursday, October 30, 2003, at 01:40 AM, victoriatangoman wrote:

>>
>> Besides, why steal my habitat when you can build your own, and not
>> worry about getting shot at or poked with sharp sticks?
>
> Because taking is easier than building. Look to history for
> instances of wars of conquest.

It's impossible to make land on Earth (except in very small
quantities), and all the existing land is taken. Therefor, if you want
land the only way to get it is conquest. This will not be true once we
start manufacturing orbital space colonies.

>
> In the
>> process of taking my habitat from me by force, you're liable to
>> damage it so much that it will no longer be worth having (if we
> don't
>> blow it up ourselves just to spite).
>
> If they can pull it off by infilitrating into your Habitat with
> their guns and then rounding up all your defenseless people at
> gunpoint then they'll have a whole Habitat for themselves without
> having damaged it at all.
>

It's possible, but screening for guns at the airlock should be pretty
easy to do.

Space tourism could be our ticket to the stars. Save your pennies,
suborbital flights for $100,000 may start in 2005! See
http://www.spaceadventures.com/suborbital for details.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "victoriatangoman"
wrote:
> Shall the citizens of the Habitats have the right to bear arms in
> order to prtect their property and to counterbalance the power of
> their government?

If a habitat is unwise enough to HAVE what we today think of as "a
government" (rather than a rigorously limited "night-watchman"
administration the role of which is strictly coordinative rather
than "political"), then HELL YEAH, its inhabitants had BETTER have
weapons. For the very same reasons that we have them Down Here.

> What are the unique circumstances of a Habitat that would make the
> above proposition less likely to occur?

Not having consented to a large, paternalistic "government" in the
first place.

spike

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Lucio de Souza Coelho
wrote:
> victoriatangoman wrote:
> (...)
> > What's a Gundam?
>
> Apparently it is an anime passed in a distant future where part of
> Humanity lives in space habitats. The Gundam fighters are mech-
suited
> guys, it seems. I have never seen one episode of this...

me neither. As anime futures go, however, I think the industrialized
yet culturally micro-fragmented Solar System depicted in _Cowboy
Bebop_ is extremely plausible :)

spike, speculatively

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophile"
wrote:
> Perhaps in some societies, strong gun control encourages
> violent crime, while in others it does not. I understand that in
> Sweden, the teenagers have even more sex than American teens do,
and
> that would explain the lack of Columbine-type events in that
> country. The teens have better things to do.

I'd have to look at data on those nations' out-of-wedlock pregnancies
and youth-onset STDs before I'd grant you that "better." A senseless
scholl shooting (like Columbine) affetcs permanently and
significantly only its perpetrator[s], its victims[s], and their
immediate freinds/family/Chosen Family. But a culture which condones -
- much less ENCOURAGES, whether intentionally or not -- a massive
breakdown in the time-tested conventional ethics of sex,
reproduction, and the attendant family relationships harms the entire
society, and usually its near neighbors as well, not only today but
also for generations upon generations yet to come.

spike

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophile"
wrote:
> I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see some hard science fiction movies set
in
> the High Frontier! Cop, spy, romantic comedy, I don't care!

Hear, hear! What an inspiration toward colonization that would
provide for today's youth (let alone US :D).

Surely there's a right-minded producer SOMEWHERE who'd tackle
Heinlein's _The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress_...? Set on a planetary body
instead of in a habitat, to be sure, but oh the sociopolitical FIRST
PRINCIPLES we could inculcate thereby -- just as Heinlein did ;) --
cleverly disguised as a rippin' good space opera!

I was SO annoyed when virtualy all the sociopolitics in the book were
stripped out of the recent film version of his _Starship Troopers_ :(

spike

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "victoriatangoman"
wrote:
> Take a look at this analysis. He bravely addresses what is verboten
> in polite company. He does note that people tend to look at all
> factors except the one he analyzes.
>
> http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/001234.html

THANK YOU for posting this!!!!!
(Unpexpected from you, I'll admit, but very cool nevertheless :))

I've got it bookmarked for thorough perusal tonight or tomorrow;
right now I have to dash off to work. GEH! How I LOATHE this
telemarketing gig!

spike

p.s. Don't get me wrong, I totally support telemarketing firms' right
to exist...but that doesn't mean I have to enjoy working for one :P