Thomas Kirby

And if the man did have a bomb, I would estimate about a 0.000 percent chance that he would not have detonated it while being chased. If it were on a timer and he could not detonate it himself, there again there is no use in holding him down and shooting him in the head. When they realize this, what are the police going to do? Have snipers ready to gun down anyone they point out as a suspect? I don't care what happened. They need to stop this foolishness immediately. Just the fact that they can't see what is wrong with this, a plainclothes detachment acting like a gang of ruffians and executing a man who quite rightly ran away from them, tells me that they should not be allowed even so high an office as dogcatcher.

Aw, you're just trying to get on my good side. There are some things that I am not worried about enough to feel that it is necessary for the government to "take action" to prevent. The bombings in London and 9/11 are some of these things. Why so? They hit very few people compared to either the population involved or the casualties involved in war, and these events take place at most two or three times per decade. They don't have the far-reaching effects that radioactive contamination of the planet does. We simply don't know how much illness has been caused by the testing of nuclear bombs, or what other damage. The denials are too glib and contain too much deliberate misdirection and too much secrecy. There is too much waltzing around. I do not trust the deniers. I do not trust people who are supposed to be experts who play with people's minds instead of giving straight answers. The improbability of a terrorist organization, or a rogue government organization, using the easily obtained uranium to create a destructive device and actually detonating it is just about the same as the probability that they will find doing so to be of benefit to their given programs. I don't even know where anyone gets the idea that it is improbable. I am not the only person in the world who will notice that a lot of usable uranium is being allowed to be shipped around unmonitored. With a half-life of 4.5 billion years, which is not as impressive as some might think considering that the half-life of the "hot" stuff is 700,000 years, a million grams of the stuff is as radioactive as one gram of something that emits the same kind of radiation and has a half-life of 4500 years. One million grams is one metric ton. Gamma radiation penetrates several inches of steel. Where is my evidence that measurements haven't been made? No one will present the evidence that they have, not even an expert who says that they don't need to be made, but who I am sure would rub my nose in them if they existed. When someone cites evidence but they don't know where it is, and they can't find it, and I don't need to see it, I don't want to say all the words for what a sensible person calls that act. So I take it that you didn't find any of the references that I found to the use of depleted uranium as counterweights in forklifts. You also didn't find the references to the use of uranium in aprons used to shield dentists and doctors from X-rays. The same source, the incredibly credible U.S. government, also says that this material is used as ballast in 747 airplanes and large yachts and sailboats. This is beginning to look as if someone could figure out buy or steal this material if they knew how to use Google, like for "uses of depleted uranium." They could literally get all they could carry. What does it say about you that you would use my concerns about asteroid impacts, which you haven't heard yet, to ridicule me? Jeez. Within living memory are a 40 megaton impact over Tunguska and another such suspected event over Greenland just recently. There is much solid evidence that damaging impacts can happen and do happen. How does it even occur to anyone to put concerns about that in the tinfoil hat category? I don't know about you but after all this crap that humankind has gone through the last few millenia, I would like to see us get on top of this kind of thing long enough to start growing up. Do you mind? And the scenario I describe uses materials that are easily available and the active materials are becoming more and more available. We are growing a blind spot at the same time law enforcement is absolutely bonkers about terrorism, to the point of using anti-terrorism legislation against pornography. I will freely accuse certain less visible forces of saving this one up to be one of the big ones, where they ask us to give up an even larger fraction of our freedoms for an illusion of safety.

It also should be public knowledge that you very carefully test the theory that depleted uranium is safe. When an expert tells me that there is no need to actually measure this, that is frightening. When he dismisses the idea that someone can freely obtain this material and convert it into something dangerous, I am almost at a loss for words. Real engineers actually find ways to measure the strains on steel girders in skyscrapers for one very good reason. Mathematical theories only work so well. Famous disasters and near disasters come about for the oddest reasons. It might be missing data, incomplete math, some fault in the design that becomes very obvious after tremendous loss of life and millions or even billions in property damage. It might be assuming that someone actually welded a structure instead of using bolts. They check everything out over and over again and find ways to know that their theories completely check with reality. This is among the simplest of mechanics and mistakes still occur. It may well be time to pat me on the head and talk down to me like a child, but in my immaturity I still think that a thing like this is dangerous until proven, exhaustively, to be otherwise. I cannot be made to believe that depleted uranium does not do a slow burn when you put enough of it together unless someone actually does the measurements. I cannot believe that it is responsible to simply dismiss concerns that a terrorist will get a load of this stuff and make it into something lethal. I think that someone will get a hold of a few tons of this stuff, make it into thin sheets, make stacks of it with aluminum foil and paper, and even if they can't make bomb grade material, they can set it somewhere and irradiate an amazingly large area before anyone finds out. I think that any sort of satellite detection can be defeated with minimal effort for any stationary installation, and when someone does this, they can place it somewhere like in a rental apartment or office in a concrete building, leave it to quietly breed until it reaches a point where it can "flash" and sterilize an entire skyscraper of all life, and make it dangerously radioactive to its surroundings. Let's hope that the terrorists believe the experts who say that this can't happen. I wouldn't want to rely on that, but if that's all we've got, that's all we've got. So what happens when a neutron bomb hits close to depleted uranium?

The message I still get here is that the offense was not a sex offense except under the requirements for registration.

My point is that depleted uranium can be made to emit neutrons, and how to do it is public knowledge. How to make this into a breeder reactor, however slow it might start, is also public knowledge.

If anyone wants to insist that terrorists cannot make use of depleted uranium, answer this question: Why do they alloy uranium fuel with aluminum? What exactly does this do for the nuclear reactor? It's a rhetorical question for the experts here. This is what happens when you bombard aluminum with alpha particles.

I have a lot easier time believing actual measurements than a theoretical reason why those measurements don't have to be done.

Then there is no reason not to produce assay results and the results of radiological tests, is there? Even if one in a million nuclei divided by four and a half billion years produces a neutron each year, that is cause for concern about transmutation. That's dividing 6.022*10^23 by 4.5*10^10^15. Yes, you only get about 1.3 * 10^-8 per gram atomic weight, but that's still a start on accumulating Pu-239 and all the other associated goodies. I'd rather measure it. It's not predictable enough to do anything but actually measure it. And I'm not real impressed with a "depletion" that leaves behind about a fourth of the active material. If someone claims to have actually measured high levels of radioactivity around tanks that were shielded with or shot with uranium, then I don't want to read someone calling them crazy (and meaning it). I want to read of careful measurements of the same or similar tanks. No reason not to do that, is there? And what about inhaling the smoke of rounds of DU that do what they do best, burn on contact with air? One of the things that makes uranium work so well as a penetrator is that it catches fire when it hits a tank. Both the chemical and radiological properties of uranium make it dangerous to inhale. The uranium incorporates itself with a man's semen for obvious reasons, because there is some urine in semen, so all of his little sperm cells are bathed in it. Even if untampered DU were proven safe, we have the problem of deliberate tampering. I definitely think that someone will come upon the idea of using aluminum as a neutron source, excited by the uranium's own radiation. That same someone will latch on to the fact that there are all sorts of neutron sources that he can get or even build, that will produce gigas of neutrons with relatively simple equipment. He may even latch on to the idea of accelerating alpha particles or deuterons. The very least that someone like this could do would be to cause a nuclear terrorism scare.

I will believe actual tests over any theory. Aluminum there is much more common than beryllium and that can be the start of trouble. How carelessly do you think the counterweights of a forklift might be handled? How carelessly might people handle depleted uranium that they have been told is safe? Just what is the fission rate of DU at .2 percent U-235 when it is a few inches away from concrete? What if a chunk of it is underwater? What if it is left in some kind of container under fairly optimum circumstances for increasing its radioactivity and no one looks at it for 20 years? As a matter of fact, your vial contains silicon and oxygen. Oxygen is not much heavier than carbon, which works to moderate neutrons. Hopefully it is borosilicate, which means that at least some of the neutrons might be absorbed. Again, whatever neutrons are emitted, can you detect them? Whether I am somewhat ignorant or not, I would look for things that can't possibly be there because this is a subject that is too important to keep a cavalier attitude about anything. The small samples aren't that important anyway. What kind of assays do you have that you can release that show the complete isotopic composition of a slug of depleted uranium, brand new, at the age of six months, and at the age of a few years to ten years? It would be especially interesting if you could get some out of the center of a stockpile of several thousand. I read some of the reports. Some of this stuff is stacked so tight that the inspectors can't get at it. Also, since it is insane to think that any significant radioactivity comes from a tank that is shielded with DU, or from sand that is contaminated with DU, or that there is any significant radiation danger from DU to veterans, there is no reason not to thoroughly test these ideas and prove them wrong, is there?

There's no such thing as a goverment cover-up. Ask Bill Clinton, George I and II, and Richard Nixon. Believe me, we are all too much like children to be allowed to handle firearms. I don't even know which end the bullets come out of.

I'm certain that this judge is not the only wanker to ever preside over a court of law.

In the message I started this thread with, I said it pretty badly. I consider the case against fluoridation to be pretty well established, and some of it started way back when. Even if it was Edgar Cayce who first mentioned it, a chemist at least has to think about whether other minerals in water like iron will change the way that fluorine interacts with the body. If I remember correctly, natural fluoridation is from calcium fluorides. How is tin fluoride an acceptable substitute? Who shows us any studies that show that fluoride supplementation is effective and safe? One other thing that sort of slid right by us is the fact that calcium salts help the teeth directly and even help heal small cavities and dark spots. If it were calcium salts that helped, no fluorides would be necessary. Your normal "hard" water would do the trick. Water that is naturally fluoridated contains the fluoride salt of calcium and other salts of calcium. You certainly can't assume that tin fluoride will do the same thing. Teeth like calcium, not tin. A halide salt of calcium is a fairly available form of calcium. What people should in fact do is at least once a day rinse their mouths with a calcium bicarbonate solution. I have to agree with people who say that if we can't find the case for fluoridation, it probably doesn't exist. Sites like this one seem to provide a lot more evidence for their side than the advocates of fluoridation. I guess being silent and looking authoritative goes quite a ways. The plural of anecdote may not be evidence, but a lot of authorities seem to have some pretty authoritative anecdotes. The site I linked to also says that calcium compounds reduce caries, not fluorides.

Which means I need to stop doing this. Point taken. Still, this stuff does get old and I'm not the only one who's not getting anywhere and probably never will.

I think that the use of any form of punishment has created a false sense that something has been done about a given social problem without providing any real solutions.

Absolutely, yes. All weapons should be in the hands of government. We know we can trust them to keep us safe from all threats, internal and external. We can trust their judgement. We will never have any reason to need to defend ourselves from our governments.

Don't worry about it.

If mutations generally don't show up until the following generation and they are showing up now, we have a problem. Jdurg, have you checked the number of fast neutrons that the shavings you keep are emitting now? Did you check it when you got them? Have you ever actually run the numbers for different configurations of DU? I know you're not afraid of being called a nutcase for doing that, or for assaying samples of DU that were manufactured six months ago or a few years ago. There's no reason not to do it, is there?

I'm wondering seriously if ammonia and bleach can be used to help clear a house of cockroaches. I don't know if the mix is flammable, though. Please don't read my name, I don't want anyone to know who wants to know or why! It can't be any worse than those bottles of fogger chemicals. As far as I know it doesn't leave a residue. It is considered safe to drink in dilution. So, unless it is more flammable than the stuff from bug bombs, what would the issues be? You have to clear the house of poisonous vapors anyway after bug bombing. I looked it up. Chloramine is rated as slightly flammable and an irritant. Any inhaled irritant can kill anyone in large enough quantities. It doesn't have to be considered poisonous. You don't have to be an asthmatic to be killed by chloramine or by pepper spray, either. Still, it's scary to think that this stuff is used in our drinking water. We also know how nasty chlorine is, too, and it is used in our drinking water more often.

It is not a "red-herring" argument, it is a common sense argument. "Unlawful restraint" is re-defined as a sex crime for purposes of forcing people to register as sex offenders. It is not a sex crime until it gets to that phase. The judge himself said that this was not a sexual offense, and the red herring is where he says that unlawful restraint is "often a precursor" to sex offenses. The criteria are in Megan's Law. Basically, if you hang your toilet paper the wrong way within a thousand feet of a school, you are guilty of a sex offense: link The next thing you know, protesting against Megan's Law will be on the list unless it is already on it in the fine print. I for one certainly do not support it. I find it worse than useless. I don't like the attitude that it represents. I don't go for the false sense of security that people get from ruining the lives of others to make a show of trying to solve a problem. I don't go for stupidity in general, and making someone a sex offender who did not commit a sexual offense is stupid. The judge himself said so, so I can say that. The closest thing we have to clever is a set of pious pronouncements along the lines of "it's for the children" and "we have to do something about it." All that and two dollars American will buy you an ice cream sandwich off the ice cream truck. People aren't even trying to do anything smart anymore. I'm shouting at the wall, but those who want to do something intelligent had better already be thinking about what happens when people stop going for it. Even the incredible enjoyment of ruining one life after another, tearing people out of their homes and stomping on them, trashing their belongings and their reputations, labelling them as this that and the other thing, and reading the Malleus Maleficarium for more hints on what to do and who to do it to, these things get old. Unfortunately, it seems to take centuries for all that to get old, so in the short term these promoters usually have job security. I always, when I point a finger, first think of what happens if the finger points back at me. If I am one of these zealots, will I even see what I am doing wrong that requires me to trash more and more people to maintain my position? Anyone who opposes me is just an idiot, or a demon, or trash, right, so I'm justified, right? And if I can't or won't think of anything better, or don't think that anyone deserves anything better, I'm still justified, right? No such thing as overzealousness. No such thing as a need to think critically. If the esteemed Senator is caught with a 14 year old male prostitute, that's just an aberration, right? No such thing as hypocrisy.

Glider, that's the whole point of this thread.

Exercise. People who exercise have tougher cardiovascular systems, heavier bones, and thicker skins. Part of this is due to increased circulation.

I am not an expert, but: E=mc^2 has nothing to do with that. It's the Lorentz framework that predicts infinite mass at the speed of light.

Shadows burned on the wall are just barely plausible. Try this experiment: Hold a piece of paper in front of the flash of an ordinary camera. Some cameras are powerful enough to actually darken the paper. Put your hand in front of the same flash and do the same thing. It doesn't hurt, although you might feel a tingle, and it will take multiple flashes to cause any kind of damage. This is because the water content of flesh makes it much harder to heat than paper, like the paper that might be covering a wall. It is just barely plausible given just the right conditions that someone could have their shadow burned into the wall without getting hurt. The eyes are a little bit iffy, but I've never heard of anyone being permanently blinded by a camera flash from close range. It isn't funny to try to test something like that. I know, I may ramble on a bit much but that was hard to resist, seeing as I have had actual physical evidence by actual experiment. Of course we could take the "burned my shadow into the wall" as permissible hyperbole, too.

Please don't use boiling water and lye. It can cause a small explosion that will backfire up the tube and splatter whoever is there with the lye. This is not a good thing. You can often clear a sink drain by using a plunger. Dishwashing soap dissolves fats pretty well when the water is hot. It's a lot safer to mix with boiling water, too. I think it is better, provided you can get any flow at all, to run a sink full of very hot, soapy water and let it drain through the clog, if the clog is just fat. If you can get the trap cleared just once, then you can do this a couple of times a week or more and keep it clear. Don't pour any fats or oils down the drain. Get an old jar and if you can't do anything else with it, just store it somewhere with the lid on. And if you do accidentally or on purpose put some down the drain, follow it with lots of hot soapy water to clear the trap. This isn't great, but it's better than being clogged. Then it's a good idea to use some diluted lye solution and some large volumes of hot water to clean the pipes below. One more thing: Please do not put any kind of flammable substance down the drain. It is dangerous. It is not necessary. One thing that was mentioned in this thread, alcohol, is not very good for dissolving fats anyway. Really, lye works and is nonflammable, and it can be diluted for safety, but the only thing that should really be needed is dish soap.

It may be splitting hairs here, but I think that the actual act of grabbing the kid's arm is not a sex crime. Megan's law sets it as a criteria for registration as a sex offender, but apparently, if I have understood what is going on here at all, the act is not actually punishable as a sex crime. Literally, a person doesn't have to be charged with or convicted of a sex crime to be put on the registry.