http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2012/08/gop-tampa-conventions-balloons-heining/1#.UyWJfYWgyVU

I hope noone does this shit ever again.
Helium is a finite resource, and its getting rare.

We need it for things like medical scanning machines, particle colliders, nuclear detectors....my god what a waste.

That looked less like an alien ship attack and more like a terrorist bombing.

A festive, happy, terrorist bombing.

*news *wings *happy

Adding video to channels (Happy, News, Wings) - requested by ant.

Technically speaking it's only getting rare on this planet

I wonder if the fundraiser was considered a success after they paid the bill for clean up, the fines for littering, and served their time in purgatory for obscene disrespect shown towards the natural world?

..it was really neat looking though.

For this reason I kinda hope we actually burn through our earthly helium supply ASAP. Then we'd finally have an incentive for urgent planetary exploration that the government understands.

Or a reason to figure out practical fusion reactors. Isn't helium a byproduct?

*1sttube

Invocations (1sttube) cannot be called by iaui because iaui is not privileged - sorry.

Love you, too, Sifty.

Come on, hippy, God's got yer back on this one. Besides, it's all going down on judgement day anyway.

Well, helium is the product of fusion. However, even if we found some "cheap" or "cold" way to fuse hydrogen into helium, I dont think it would be cheap enough to produce useful amounts. Ie producing enough energy to keep a light bulb on for 300 years will produce 1 balloon full of helium. (http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/teachers/hera/spectroscopy/snr/fusion_calculation.html)