I'll buy the As argument.. just a tiny bit.

Post #4,108 by Ashton 8/7/01 6:34:50 PM Reply	I'll buy the As argument.. just a tiny bit. That is - that there is hardly any 'knowledge' of what "safe levels" might mean, for most of the substances we are exposed to daily. Now. You also have to also remember: The arguments pooh-poohing radiation, talking about 'acceptably small' levels of radioactive contamination. Now this IS a vastly complex topic, having to do with human ingestion, where isotopes lodge, kind and energy of emitter, half-life yada yada.. yet, Until a Large Stink was raised by One scientist, George ____ IIRC in early '60s: it was fashionable to apply "common sense rulez" / vast oversimplifications. Pooh-poohing being ever so popular, cause it saves so much hard work to check. Finally - there are literally millions of substances now virtually everywhere (showing up in the Arctic even!), which never existed before the mass-manufacture of any old chemical combo some marketer thought might turn a profit. At least currently - we do make a few tests. But the prospect of immediate profit is always the major force. 20 years later, is in the minds of a precious few, who are never also rich. Given the impossibility of dealing with this Pandora's box in any clear way - it is always safe to say that we know too damn little about most, especially about effects of trace amounts long-term. So now we have to focus upon the merely apparently.. rilly egregious ones.. out of the river flowing by. Thus you can always say - any 'standard' is far likelier to be incompetent + OR - easily. And as to above As 'problem' - it's surely aggravated as 'newsfotainment' by the obvious association as poison. And no one Does Know what 10 VS 50 \ufffdgms/liter means. Like NaF - a cheap convenient rat-poison perhaps: Are you prepared to defend the idea that, it is / was near the most effective ever found VS - it was simply cheap to make? thus boost the packaging cost on up (as with bicarbonate of soda! notice lately what 1.2 \ufffd worth of that sells for, in the familiar yellow Corporate box?) And it will Still be a Red Herring to try to make the NaF association you and the Birch-boys make - disingenuous at best. I have 15 grains of scopolamine hydrobromide too.. enough to do in a homo-sap, pretty untraceably even. In smaller quantity - a popular anti-nausea nostrum for ages; in other dosage - help or hurt the nervous system in certain contexts. Ditto curare - actually used in some operations. Ditto cocaine HCl - still often preferred in certain eye surgeries. That bat won't fly.. it's cant, except in a Lot of context. Like I said. ashton
Post #4,126 by boxley 8/7/01 8:56:56 PM Reply	what is the loss of life due to banning ddt? malaria, sleeping sickness, typhoid cholera and a pile of other deaths linked to insect transmission that ddt quickly effectively decimated and yes was found in the arctic but the cost of banning isnt always measured in dollars. What is the acceptable human cost in using poison or not. 1 a million? thanx, bill Our bureaucracy and our laws have turned the world into a clean, safe work camp. We are raising a nation of slaves. Chuck Palahniuk
Post #4,133 by Ashton 8/7/01 9:31:13 PM Reply	Precisely the kind of question which homo-sap mangles horribly - since wisdom is required to approach any sane weighing of (even the known..) factors, facts, aspects -- guesses. And in my experience thus far, the concept of Bizness and that of wisdom create an oxymoron when used in any sentence. And even taking the DDT web of sticky consequences - it's far from anything a slogan can answer. Want contradictions? Look at Thalidomide - taken as directed by women suffering nausea during pregnancy: deformities. Now today - some other uses, perhaps significant ones, appear to have been discovered. When you trot out these blanket generalizations (yes - some self-named ecologists Are whores. Now about the entire Idea!?) -- or drop in the DDT as if: banning it must have been stupid because _____. I don't buy it. By now we have probably lost (??) most any remaining chance of sane protection.. of the very biosphere. Few appear to actually 'get' how interdependent are all the species including: ours. Even yet, though they've heard the words. And we know why - hard choices are almost Always resolved for the quick buck, the quarterly return - the pandering to little boys' fantasies of Rugged Off-road Behemoths: no matter what the obvious consequences are, of.. a lot more than mere gasoline usage: All the chemicals, energy used to manufacture, ship, later junk that boy toy, so often used to run to the 7-11; so rarely used to bust up the tundra (fortunately!) - just because it is there to be busted up by spoiled brats too bored to do anything but 'move' something to.... somewhere else. I'll vote with over-reacting to plausible further enviro- atrocities -- as a small counter to our juvenile and self-indulgent approaches, to date. Ditto with DDT. Thalidomide is OK -- precisely where it really IS OK. (SUVs/UAVs OTOH are pure indulgence. A 7300# Ford Explorer? QED) A.
Post #4,135 by admin 8/7/01 9:35:49 PM Reply	Pure indulgence? No. My father's Explorer is a necessary piece of equipment on his farm in Northern Michigan. Lots of snow, lots of work to do. My minivan is a necessary piece of equipment. Often we have way too much stuff to fit in a car. I've used it for carrying drywall, lumber, and a myriad of other large things. Yuppies running around in SUVs, wearing furs to the supermarket and getting their drives plowed in the winter, yes, they are indulgences. But I could have used one many times this past winter. Regards, -scott anderson
Post #4,141 by Ashton 8/7/01 10:10:37 PM Reply	Of course! legitimate need for... 10% of them ? ..a generous estimate? This Just In: A new, slightly smaller Humm-Vee in the works. For those who can't quite pay the $78K for the Real Thing. My objection is to the herd mentality which lies behind their ugly popularity. (And No One needs a $50K+ Mercedes UAV for any conceivable 'job'. Wants? Yes.) Of course you can't 'legislate' against the actions of herds, except perhaps by finding a way to bill each for the er 'truer cost' of the indulgence. Like making CAFE more than a forgotten slogan of yore. Guzzler tax with teeth. Insolence tax? Not if the item is Popular = lose votes. Which leaves us ___ A. PS - I bet that few realize how well the similarly-priced hybrid cars Go! With max torque (like the steam engine) at 0 rpm for the motor + gas engine, as that levels off: integrated power delivery means - It Moves. All we have to do is get a few Alpha-males to start trading-in for 'em.. the herd will follow. Hey donate one to me and I'll gladly show it around.. :-\ufffd
Post #4,144 by boxley 8/7/01 10:49:32 PM 8/7/01 10:52:54 PM Reply	shoot if a bank was ever stupid enough to lend me money I would be in one of the new honda hybrids in a heartbeat. With my financial condition it will be a 2 year roll my own project perhaps using a 1987 k car from cryco-dodge even better drive a turbine with hydrolic motors on each wheel, afriend of mine developed this technology(waiting on patent) that would simply spin 4 motors on each wheel at a measured for torque rate. Picture a helicopter rotor effect attached to all 4 wheels. Off to 60 right fscking now. thanx, bill Our bureaucracy and our laws have turned the world into a clean, safe work camp. We are raising a nation of slaves. Chuck Palahniuk Edited by boxley Aug. 7, 2001, 10:52:54 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #5,685 by CRConrad 8/17/01 5:39:30 PM Reply	Sorry - Swedish Defence Research developed that in the 60's. See [link\|http://www.granfoss.net/arne/k100e/bilar/carmakes/k1cafoa.htm\|[link\|http://www.granfoss.net/arne/k100e/bilar/carmakes/k1cafoa.htm\|http://www.granfoss.../k1cafoa.htm]][]. At least as far as I know, it has hydraulic (sic) motors not only articulating, but also driving, each wheel. If I've got this wrong, then I* was probably still before him, since in the late 70's (AFAICR), I "developed" -- based upon the possible misunderstanding above (and also on the Lohner-Porsche system I've mentioned here before) -- cars and lorries using hydraulic motors driving each wheel. And if that "doesn't count" (since it was only in my head), then lumber machines and dumper trucks (at least ones from Volvo) use the same system. As does the Bofors "model 77" semi-self-propelled howitzer, come to think of it. So if your friend gets a patent on it... Then that only goes to prove how fucked-up your patent system is. []: It's a direct link to a sub-page of a framed site; the main page is at [link\|http://www.granfoss.net/arne/k100e/bilar/\|[link\|http://www.granfoss.net/arne/k100e/bilar/\|http://www.granfoss...k100e/bilar/]]. (I especially liked the tractor-trailer combo from Kalmar Verkstad -- scroll down to 'K' in the left-hand manufacturer listing.) Christian R. Conrad* The Man Who Knows Fucking Everything
Post #5,699 by boxley 8/17/01 6:32:44 PM Reply	you rat bassard! now I have to stop what I am doing and go thru every one of those links! Thanks! bill Our bureaucracy and our laws have turned the world into a clean, safe work camp. We are raising a nation of slaves. Chuck Palahniuk
Post #4,180 by jb4 8/8/01 10:00:05 AM Reply	OK, then...Someone explain to me the Cadillac Esplanade... ...as something other than pure arrogant indulgence. I'm waiting.... jb4 (Resistance is not futile...)
Post #4,185 by boxley 8/8/01 10:18:36 AM Reply	market share of the navigator :) In the town were I live there is a divorce going on where the husband requires 2k a month for dining out purposes and they ar fighting over the custody of their 17 polo horses. People like that cannot afford to be seen in a mere Expedition, gawd what would the neighbors think? thanx, bill Our bureaucracy and our laws have turned the world into a clean, safe work camp. We are raising a nation of slaves. Chuck Palahniuk
Post #4,263 by admin 8/8/01 4:16:04 PM Reply	Didn't say it wasn't. But Ashton was damning all SUVs with the same wide brush. :-) Regards, -scott anderson
Post #4,282 by Ashton 8/8/01 5:04:37 PM Reply	Nahhh... just the 90%.
Post #4,136 by bepatient 8/7/01 9:41:12 PM Reply	Enviro-atrocities? Arsenic occurs naturally in water. Certainly some activities may aggravate the problem...most notably mining...but it is a natural phenomenon. the NaF "red herring" is generally NOT a natural occurrence. Absolutely not natural at the levels we inject. So which is the atrocity? Chlorination is another issue...because there hasn't been a disinfection method persistent enough to carry the water through distribution. That is definitely a problem of "at what cost" Um...er...well... I have no choice! [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #5,686 by CRConrad 8/17/01 5:40:28 PM Reply	WTF does "natural phenomenon" have to do with anything? Drowning in a muddy water hole, being burnt in a brushfire, getting crushed by a rockslide, or being killed and eaten by a tiger are all natural phenomena. Houses, roads, dining tables and water closets are all distinctly artificial. But you're going on about "natural occurrences" as if that in and of itself makes drowning and being burned, crushed, or eaten better than going down the road to your house, having dinner at a table, and later relieving yourself of it on a WC. "Natural = good, artificial = bad"... "Four legs good, two legs better"? Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Knows Fucking Everything
Post #4,138 by boxley 8/7/01 9:52:43 PM Reply	definition of envirowhore someone who cries about Alaska to boost revenues for their personal gain while by their actions on a local level are ignored. Environmental activist for a living. Not a cheap all for the cause living but in the case of the Directors making 250k + per year with only 5% or less of donations going to anything except costs and more fund raising. Example crying about killing wolves in Alaska and forcing local SoCal communities to kill coyotes. Biggest one comes to mind is John Denver decrying Alaska while sitting on a BURIED 2000 GAL (WORSE FSCKING WAY TO STORE FUEL) on his hossy ranch in aspen and yes he installed it. I am an environmentalist who hopefully uses logic to come to an opinion. A true environmentalist who believes in recycling cars on my own property but is decried by the local Sierra Club types who want to give me citations. :) thanx, bill Our bureaucracy and our laws have turned the world into a clean, safe work camp. We are raising a nation of slaves. Chuck Palahniuk
Post #4,168 by imric 8/8/01 8:29:47 AM Reply	Atrocities? Bah. Ash, my father was on the team that gathered the 'data' for the banning of DDT. The reason? It was too cheap, and effective. It was also a commodity. The real statistics do NOT show any causal relationship with the eggs of birds, or anything else above insectoid life. In fact, the only effect my dad found that it had on mammilian life was that factory workers producing it (they were covered in the stuff, like flour covers a baking pan) showed NO incidence of skin cancer. However, he did find traces of it in the damndest places (penguins, monkeys, etc.) - and they used that and the emotional reaction (it's a poison, it's got to be bad) to get it banned. In short, they used environmental 'conscience'... In fact, it was replaced by insecticides derived from the waste products of nerve gas production. Now THAT stuff was toxic. 'Bizness' indeed. Imric's Tips for Living Paranoia Is a Survival Trait Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
Post #4,287 by Ashton 8/8/01 5:19:07 PM Reply	I'd be impressed by a source like that.. And I don't pretend to have researched the sub-rosa activities of the ban. It may well have been so simple as, Hey this stuff IS everywhere! and.. we don't know what that might portend (and we Know we don't know) so: ?what to do? I'd venture to guess though - that we still don't 'know' what are the overall effects of such proliferation of an artificial substance.. As with: all the brake-dust, tire-tread dust, aerosols and their carried substances. Not enough interest, nor $. Was the DDT ban more about it being a no-profit commodity, than a possibly mistaken concern over proliferation?? Clearly the Drug Wars currently undermining many Constitutional principles - are akin to the former: Pharm Chem does NOT like natural, cheap, effective pain relievers - or, any Other kind of desirable untaxed substance. The Corp tax cannot be levied on tincture of Iodine, makes only peanuts on aspirin, etc. Maybe your dad was right - will consider self updated but not.. surprised. Now... can we disband the Narcs, decriminalize (lots of stuff) and stop bein a bunch of Puritan busybodies, for gossipy fun and huge profit? [Uh - No, I don't think we Can. Its so Murican a thing.] A.
Post #4,291 by imric 8/8/01 5:45:43 PM Reply	It was... Was the DDT ban more about it being a no-profit commodity, than a possibly mistaken concern over proliferation? Yes. When my Dad tells the story, he always laughs - and acts a bit cynical about it, but I always got the impression that that was the point that 'deflowered' him re: a career being a research chemist. It seemed to really disillusion him. Now... can we disband the Narcs, decriminalize (lots of stuff) and stop bein a bunch of Puritan busybodies, for gossipy fun and huge profit? Nah, our 'culture' has to evolve beyond sophomoric 'I know what's best for you' good intentions on the part of the people, and 'There's a sucker born every minute' on the part of our rulers (government/business). Not in this lifetime. Imric's Tips for Living Paranoia Is a Survival Trait Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
Post #4,309 by Another Scott 8/8/01 8:49:22 PM Reply	Science News story on DDT [link\|http://www.sciencenews.org/20000701/bob2.asp\|[link\|http://www.sciencenews.org/20000701/bob2.asp\|http://www.sciencen...701/bob2.asp]] is a story on DDT's use in controlling malaria, with a fairly balanced treatment. [link\|http://warrensburg.k12.mo.us/ew/ddt/matt.html\|This] story says the WHO credits DDT with saving the lives of 25 million people in Europe in the 1940s. It also says that only 1 person is known to have died from DDT - they mistook DDT powder for flour and made pancakes... Plusses and minuses like much of life.... Cheers, Scott.
Post #4,315 by imric 8/8/01 9:35:29 PM Reply	chuckle OT, and waxing nostalgic... Ah, dieldren - and let's not forget aldrin (No-Pest strips, Shell House & Garden sprays)... My old man was 'in' on those, too. I remember my father choking with laughter during the 'ad campaign' against DDT (Silent Spring featured prominently there) when a talk-show host had a guest that mentioned an 'insecticide' that killed her father. He recognized it. (I don't remember what it was - I was rather young) It was illegal. The farmer was spraying for CROWS, not insects. I have more faith in my father's evaluation of our chemical lifestyle than you find in science news and journals (though he WAS a bit of a 'mad scientist', truth to tell... He 'insect-proofed' our house with his own noxious, unapproved brew along the foundations when it was being built - we've never had problems with bugs since... grin). I still believe it's more business/politics than science. Imric's Tips for Living Paranoia Is a Survival Trait Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
Post #4,332 by Steve Lowe 8/9/01 2:05:58 AM Reply	heard similar anecdotes re: asbestos A local mall was shut down and refurbished due to asbestos insulation being discovered. I was there talking with one of the guys in the company that was doing the removal...don't really remember why I was there talking to him... Don't know how true this is, but he was telling me that there's more asbestos in the air in one day in any busy city (from car and truck brakes and clutches primarily) than there would be in that mall in 10 years. He seemed to think it was mostly ridiculous, but didn't mind taking people's money to remove it. However, I do know of one famliy who lost their livelihood because the icecream store they owned in the mall was forced out of business due to the mall being shut down. ----- Steve
Post #4,338 by imric 8/9/01 8:27:12 AM Reply	What's worse... ...is that it's harmless unless it's breathed... How does it get into the air? Through remediation! Imric's Tips for Living Paranoia Is a Survival Trait Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...

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