>> ^kronosposeidon:

Not an original, but one my dad used to say from time to time: It's not the fall that kills you. It's the sudden stop.


To take it a bit further I'd say it wasn't the sudden stop, but the sudden acceleration of your internal organs in reference to the rest of your body.

[redacted]

I like that we can see a little of what is going on for people from there, and I think people should help. And I think we have a lot of people in this country who would gladly go there if they knew they were going to have a place to stay, food to eat, and transportation to get to where the work needed to be done....and some assurances they won't develop cancer or some other illness and drop dead in 5-10 years because they went there to help.

But as with all things, unless you know someone there who has their finger on the pulse of the situation and has contacts in the government...you will go there and be told "The best thing you can do right now is go home." unless you're famous......then they'll put you in front of some cameras and try to keep you happy so you don't go on talk shows and tell people how horribly bad it is there.

We have a lot of people who were just recently cut off from unemployment benefits (up to 2+ months ago) who would love to have a chance to go down there to help and draw a pay check to keep their house and such that they are in the process of losing. Small sidenote: What's funny is that the unemployment benefits got cut off....and now our unemployment percentages went from ~17% to ~10%...amazing they all found jobs...or stopped bothering to report their unemployment state since they aren't getting benefits from it....news hasn't investigated it.

These documentaries show there are things that need to be done, there's a real problem that having solid, useful information could help in applying an overwhelming workforce to the problem to overcome it. They just have to make sure that this overwhelming workforce isn't setting themselves up for death in 10 years because they weren't told that handling this stuff or being near it would result in cancer/internal organ failure/etc. And letting that kind of information out would make BP look bad, because it's not just dirty oil that kills all the wildlife..but it's dirty oil that kills all the wildlife and will continue to kill anything in the area for years to come.

I know at least 3 people and probably another half dozen who'd love to take their machinery down there to help out, as long as any damage caused to the machinery is going to be reimbursed (oily/sandy grit is not a good combination for moving parts) and they draw a paycheck to cover expenses of being there and their homes.

I wondered why they didn't dig a ditches in the beach lines, line them with plastic and slope them toward a pit or some kind of area where a pump can suck up the stuff making it to land to be processed there. Separate out the oil to a tanker, have 2-3 tankers making rounds to keep up with the oil and pump the water back out into the ocean. Sure some of the oil and stuff would be absorbed, but at least you're mitigating the absorption to an area near where your ditches are. You'd need some people on-site to make sure the ditches aren't getting plugged with debris and aren't eroding to the point of being useless. And then you'd probably have to dig new ditches with the tide. I can't tell what that raking and putting stuff in trashbags is doing to help the clean up in any significant way.


| | | | | | | |
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| | | | | | | |
---------------[ ]---------------

[ ] = pump pit Pump Pit
And the editor basically butchered my little sketch, so there'd be some spacing between the | ditch lines and the [ ] pit would be larger to allow for more pumps to work on the same pit.

Something like that, you'd have to redig the | lines when the tide washes in and fills them...maybe use metal channels that are plastic lined that can be lifted out and move off so the tide doesn't fill them making them hard to lift or wash them away. And redig them once it recedes and put the metal channels back in place. And probably need something strong enough to hold the weight of a mini-excavator or back-hoe to clear the mouth of the | channels as stuff builds up in the mouth of them...so you can drive across the | channels to get to the problem areas.

Not sure how they could approach the swamp/marshland type areas, maybe focus their boats and booms more heavily in them to catch anything that the beach pumps don't draw in.....then setup fleets in the heart of the oil masses to suck up as much as they can before it gets close to shorelines. If the beach ditches worked out well, and the pumps were more than able to keep up with the natural water flow...they could be spread out some because they would pull the majority of the water toward the ditches.

Getting shot by a taser is like being shot with a less than lethal projectile that also zaps your internal organs.

>> ^Hybrid:

Dear sifters, if you see me lying in the road injured, having been hit by a car. Please do not knead my battered body and internal organs by walking on me, as I think this would hurt a bit.


Also, put the camera down and call an ambulance.

Dear sifters, if you see me lying in the road injured, having been hit by a car. Please do not knead my battered body and internal organs by walking on me, as I think this would hurt a bit.

I dislike the way they keep placing the blame for this on the UN itself. It's a powerful block of fifty or so islamic nations with a very specific agenda, not the international organization as a whole.

They keep saying "the UN is doing this" and "the UN is doing that" as if we weren't even a damn member! It's misleading to paint the entire organization as somehow behind this absurd proposal when the point of this story should be that the islamic nations can form a formidable political front in the international community.

The United States is THE founding member of the United Nations. The UN has always been an American organization in design, principles, and execution. The fact that most Americans today address it with open contempt shouldn't be an irony lost to anyone.

There's a growing tendency to demonize the UN, and the organization has many faults, but it seems like everyone who advocates dismantling it doesn't even suggest an international body to replace it.

As if an international body isn't absolutely evident, obvious, and necessary.

SpaceOddity, you're not alone.

This is absurd. When he refers to Hollywood divorcing Americanness from the military, he's not talking about all militaries, Skeeve. He's talking about the U.S. military, and he's right. G.I. Joe cartoons capitalized on the awesomeness of the U.S. military. My memories of the show are a jumble of corny lines, explosions, big weapons, and cool military technology. What he's saying is that G.I. Joe got popular among little American boys because it was about how awesome OUR military is, and this movie takes that popularity and exploits it, removing the patriotic U.S. military core of the entire franchise. Cobra was a terrorist organization bent on world domination. Can you imagine these filmmakers producing a movie about American heroes fighting terrorists? No, no, no, we can't have that.

I'm rambling again. What I want to say is that it's absolutely preposterous to make G.I. Joe some kind of international organization. They wanted to use the G.I. Joe name for its dollar value, but then they decided to get all apologetic about the Americanness of it. (Hm...apologizing for America. Of whom am I reminded?) In case you've forgotten, these characters were American men and women of diverse ethnicities who gave good advice to kids.

P.S. Your narrow-minded "America sucks" attitude is incredibly immature, ignorant, and trendy.

I'm just glad there isn't an animal that has found a hax like that for humans.

I read about a wasp today that performs brain surgery on cockroaches so they become docile, leads it to a burrow and lays an egg on top. The larva then proceeds to dig into the roach and eat the internal organs in an order that keeps it alive as long as possible...

>> ^chilaxe:
It seems like the shockwave would have non-negligible health costs for the tank occupants' internal organs and nervous system.



The rigid structure prevents much of that. It could hurt their hearing if loud enough, but the tank's armor would prevent much displacement from taking place (assuming the walls weren't breached or significantly deformed).

It seems like the shockwave would have non-negligible health costs for the tank occupants' internal organs and nervous system.

>> ^Chaucer:
cant see how that is good for the horse since the weight from its own body can damage its internal organs.


You mean you've never seen a horse lying down, or rolling around in the dirt for that matter? Hmm....

cant see how that is good for the horse since the weight from its own body can damage its internal organs.

on what authority does anyone here determine what methods are "humane" to kill other humans?

you think this bomb is going to hurt any less than stray bullets richoeting through the internal organs of innocent bystandards? how about the guy who gets shot in the nuts and knees? thousands of small children die every day in "humane" attacks yet you are worried about some percentage that (in)voluntarily pick up bomblets?

in my book, american philosophy is a crime against humanity. at least cluster bombs don't make the choice to kill people.

Awe Crap, I just had to pick my jaw and my internal organs off the floor. I can't believe he got up - in shock I'd say.

He is lucky he hit the side of the car. A second sooner he would have been splat!