BellGab.com Archive

I've been working on a research paper for a college course and I'm hoping someone here can help me with a problem.  Generally I would ask these things in class but the paper is due later this week and that is the last day of the semester.

The issue I have is with citations.  This might sound weird...I need to cite the Unabomber Manifesto but I'm not sure how I go about doing that.  Is this considered well known enough that citation is not required?  What I'm using is a few quotations from it and my guess is a citation is needed.

Assuming it is needed, how do I cite that?  It was published originally in the Post and Times in 1995 but I accessed it from a website.  http://cyber.eserver.org/unabom.txt  Should I just attribute it to Kaczynski in 1995, or include one of the newspapers and or website?

If it matters for a response, I'm required to use APA format.  Surely with all the brain power floating around Coastgab someone knows the answer.  Thanks in advance for any help on this.

I'm surprised there isn't a thread here about this already so I figured I'd start one.  The whole thing reminds me of this South Park episode.

http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s09e02-die-hippie-die

I get a little chuckle when I see them on the news and then imagine them as cardboard cutout South Park characters.

Not that I necessarily disagree with some of their message, but overall I think they're wasting their time.  Discuss!

I fell asleep last night with the coastgab stream running and awoke to some woman screaming at Art's guest.  Boy she was pissed off.  I was in that half asleep half awake state and I was trying to stay concious enough to find out what she was all upset about and who the guest was.  I'm almost positive it was Charles Ostman and she was calling him a cancer and other things.  I recall Art mentioning something about nano technology so the guest being Ostman makes sense.  Anyway, does anyone remember this show well enough to give me a air date or anything?  Ever since I got up this morning I've been wondering about what he could've said that was so upsetting to her.

After moving back home I've had the chance to go through a bunch of my old stuff including a huge box of my old CD's.  It's been fun relistening to some stuff I havn't heard in years and there's the occasional album which I wonder why I ever bought in the first place.  Last night in particular I put in Shania Twain - Come on Over which I remember buying when it was new.  While flipping through songs I was checking out Wikipedia for some info on the CD just for fun and I found this page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_albums_worldwide#Best-selling_albums_by_country

I still kind of like that CD but how the hell did it sell 40 million albums??  After skimming that list further I noticed there's a grand total of two albums on there from the past ten years both of which are near the bottom.  That got me to wondering about WTF happened to music.  Obviously pirating today takes a hefty chunk out of sales but there has to be more than that.  Also I don't really buy into the idea that crappy music today is affecting sales all that much since according to that list the Backstreet Boys have a total of 94 million records sold.  Among that list there's actually not many albums I would call great music personally.  Popular music today is horrible IMO but there's quite a number of albums on there I would consider horrible and maybe half I would consider mediocre.

I've tried thinking of modern albums that may have made the chart were it not for piracy and I can't really think of any.  I wouldn't have put Ace of Base there back in the day either so maybe I'm not a good judge of these things.  As I said I don't buy into the idea of piracy destroying sales so badly anyway.

All I could really come up with are two ideas.  One, I don't think they really try to make music anymore that has mass appeal accross genres.  Possibly at a point in the 80's and 90's the music appealed to multiple generations where as today I don't think that's true.  Two, the internet has allowed people to more easily branch out their tastes in music.  We're not really forced to hear a select few artists on the local radio stations anymore.

Yeah I know this whole thing isn't news but I enjoy these topics on culture and how and why it changes.  Anyone elses thoughts on the topic are welcome.

I was browsing through a bunch of hospital websites earlier today doing some job hunting near where I'm moving to.  One hospital in particular had a giant banner above all the job posting saying that they do nicotine testing prior to hiring anyone.  I thought it was a joke at first but nope, that's some real shit.

What it amounted to is if you pop hot for nicotine no job for you.  You're then put on a 90 day ban from applying for open positions.  I can't believe this is legal.  I guess it must be but WTF is that?  I can understand them not wanting you to smoke at work, or come to work stinking like a bar, but I can't go home and relax with a cigarette anymore?

This caused me to search around online to find out how long nicotine stays in your system.  For a daily smoker it looks like it can take a week or two of quitting to be in the clear for anyone that wants to know.  I imagine these type of rules will only become more common in the future.  Luckily out of the 20 or 25 hospital websites I looked at this was the only one with nicotine testing.  Or at least it was the only one who bluntly puts that on their website.

Can you imagine going home telling your family that you lost your job because you had a cigarette while out fishing last weekend?

I've been trying to think of other cases like this that exist.  By that I mean things that are legal to do but jobs won't hire you if you do them during your own time.  So far I'm coming up with nothing.

While not related to CTC at all I thought it might be fun to toss this topic out among all the thoughtful, well spoken people here.

I've been listening to the audiobook version of an older book by Dawkins called The Ancestor's Tale which reminded me of how much I liked The Greatest Show on Earth.  For those who havn't read this it's about the evidence of evolution and how and why it works the way it does.  I've been a long time subscriber to the idea of evolution but admittedly knew very little of the science behind it or what drives it.  It just made logical sense to me I guess.

Greatest Show had several of those 'ah haa!' moments of epiphany for me where suddenly I saw with a greater understanding how the world around me works.  What I thought about evolution prior to the book wasn't necessarily wrong but just not the whole picture.  More like a small piece of it.  Listening to the audiobook was a humbling experience for me.  The author (and his wife/girlfriend/BFF or something like that) does the reading and they do a pretty good job of it.  Dawkins seems to have a way of making something hugely complex easily understandable.  He's like the Michio Kaku of biology for me.

The memories of the book came about since I'm going through his other book now mentioned above.  The Ancestor's Tale so far isn't as captivating but still interesting.  It's basicly follows human ancectors back through time down to tiny water borne organisms.  At least I think that's where it's going, I havnt finished yet.

I felt the need to post here for two reasons.  One, it was one of those rare experiences for me.  I like to share it so maybe others can find something similar in it.  Two, I'm sure there's people here who are much better versed on the topic than myself.  If anyone else has read this or other books on the subject I'd love to hear your ideas and comparisons.

I also think he would make an awesome CTC guest but I'm sure neither side would ever agree to do it.

I've heard a few of the old Lazar interviews and they were pretty good.  I get the impression from a few other posts here that Lazar was outed as a fake?  What's the story as far as his authenticity.

Are there any really good shows on TV anymore?  I mean outside of the news, commentary, talk, and reality shows.  I'm talking about dramas or comedies mostly I guess.  I've mostly given up on television.  Specifically network television is out of the question, outside of the occasional sporting event.

I've been thinking for a while now and can only come up with two shows that currently run which interest me.  Those being Burn Notice and South Park.  I've really loved some of HBOs stuff in the past but I dont even know what they run these days.  Did I change or did TV become really lame?  I'll admit to not even watching much new for at least a few years now so maybe I'm missing something.  I don't have cable or anything but will buy DVD and Bluray sets or grab a sample off Demonoid.

Do you have a show that you absolutely cannot miss?  What was the last show or series you'd consider outstanding entertainment?

I wanted to start a thread for people to share their favorite authors, books, and genres of fiction.  Reading fiction is one of those things I wish I did more often.  Finding reccomendations to try out is a way to get back into it maybe.

I'll start by saying that I enjoy fantasy and a little bit of sci-fi for the most part.  I got started on the genre in high school by reading Tolkien and it has went from there.  Since then I've gotten tired of Lord of the Rings and all of it's derivatives that saturate the fantasy fiction section.  I still enjoy the good vs. evil, good wins, happy ending books from time to time but now prefer something more off the beaten path.  My favorite series would be the Black Company books by Glen Cook.  If you like a down and dirty realistic take on fantasy this is the one for you.  Realistic fantasy sounds like an oxymoron but I'm not sure how else to describe it.

There's also a lot of classic fiction I've been meaning to get around to reading someday.  I've never read 1984 and that's next on my list for old classics.

What are your favorites?

I wanted to start a topic to honor the guests who have been banned by Art Bell after reading a few different threads around here.  The topic on The Amazing Kreskin has a clip in there in which Art claims to have banned up to 4 different guests prior to adding Kreskin to the list.  In the Ian Punnett thread we've been talking about David John Oates who also was banned.

I've heard a third guest get kicked off the show but I can't remember his name.  It was some guy making all kinds claims about everything from aliens and Area 51 to Ted Kennedy wanting to have sex with this guys teenage daughter, without connecting the stories into any kind of point.  I think I remember Art saying it was the guy just going all over the place that did him in but I got the feeling it was the unfounded comments about the Kennedy's that Art didn't tolerate.  Was this guy actually banned or just kicked off that night?

Who are the other 2 or 3 banned guests?  I don't want to include guests who were just removed from the show for the night like Steve Quayle.  The Kreskin interview was in 2002 so I would think Art's count of around 4 banned guests, plus Kreskin, should be accurate still today.

I looked through this section of the boards and was surprised to not find a thread for Michio Kaku.  He is far and away my favorite guest Art has ever had on.  I've managed to find a lot of his old interviews and relisten to them once in a while.  I've yet to get his interviews done with Noory.  I just can't see him asking very good questions.

Mr. Kaku has a great way of helping the average guy understand space and physics to a certain extent.  Not only does he make it understandable but it's entertaining.  I get the feeling that he only makes me feel like I understand when I really don't but i'm okay with that.  If anyone has a cache of his old interviews and might be able to fill in my blanks please let me know.  I can give exact dates if needed.