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I know you're being silly, but this seems like a good point to drop a link for Bergmann's Rule:
http://www.newworldencyclopedi...

Get off your fucking high horse already and stop being a cultural snob. No one died and made you king.

Logicomix: An epic search for truth is 352 pages.

Watchman is 448 pages

No one gives a fuck how long a graphic novel is -- only if they were entertained.

Let me guess, you were probably one of those snobs who thought "talkies" (talking movies) were ruining movies via a focus on dialogue would subvert the unique aesthetic virtues of soundless cinema.

You condemn yourself with your ignorance.

What is the lethal dose of plutonium? I went to look it up. About 22 milligrams.
http://www.newworldencyclopedi...

This is just plain false.

Here is a citation from The Human Plutonium Injection Experiments:

In July 1945, Wright Langham insisted that the 5-microgram standard be reduced
by a factor of 5 on the basis of animal experiments that showed that plutonium was
distributed in the bone differently, and more dangerously, than radium. Thus, the
maximum permissible body burden for plutonium was set at 1 microgram.

That's because they began to understand that assessing the lethal dose of plutonium is far more complicated than just swallowing or injecting purified plutonium. Do we find purified plutonium in the environment, no we don't because it's man made. Once plutonium gets into the environment that is when it forms other compounds that are more readily absorbed and organically bound in the body.

These are the salient details that you haven't communicated.

Body Burden = internal amount.

Max Permissable = much much lower than is actually known to cause harm.

What you won't do is present one plausible scenario where a person internally takes on an unsafe amount of plutonium.

What is the lethal dose of plutonium? I went to look it up. About 22 milligrams. http://www.newworldencyclopedi...

This is just plain false.

Here is a citation from The Human Plutonium Injection Experiments:

In July 1945, Wright Langham insisted that the 5-microgram standard be reduced by a factor of 5 on the basis of animal experiments that showed that plutonium was distributed in the bone differently, and more dangerously, than radium. Thus, the maximum permissible body burden for plutonium was set at 1 microgram.

That's because they began to understand that assessing the lethal dose of plutonium is far more complicated than just swallowing or injecting purified plutonium. Do we find purified plutonium in the environment, no we don't because it's man made. Once plutonium gets into the environment that is when it forms other compounds that are more readily absorbed and organically bound in the body.

These are the salient details that you haven't communicated.

As a heavy metal is it about 4 times as dangerous as mercury.

Then don't eat it. Airborne particle detectors not picking up the plutonium that isn't airborne is not a "failure" in the detectors. Getting upset about that is nonsensical.

not sure about Polonium

Then look it up. Polonium-210 has a half life of less than 140 days, and this waste processing site was created for the disposal of World War II and Cold War era nuclear waste. The polonium is all gone by now.
http://www.newworldencyclopedi...

we could again make a google / link war

To do that you'd have to actually link to something.

What is the lethal dose of plutonium? I went to look it up. About 22 milligrams.
http://www.newworldencyclopedi...

The toxicity of plutonium is in dispute; nuclear industry advocates point to the low chemical toxicity of plutonium and ability of a worker to hold a kilogram brick of the material without protection; if inhaled or digested, however, plutonium's effects due to radioactivity overwhelm the effects of plutonium's chemical interactions with the body, and the LD50 dose for intravenous injection in an adult human weighing 70 kilograms is calculated to be approximately 22 milligrams (based on extrapolation from tests on dogs).

What substance is also lethal at that dose? Tylenol.
http://www.newworldencyclopedi...

The toxic dose of acetaminophen is highly variable. In adults, single doses above 10 grams or 140 mg/kg have a reasonable likelihood of causing toxicity. In adults, single doses of more than 25 grams have a high risk of lethality.

For plutonium to be lethal someone would have to have 22 milligrams of plutonium injected into their bloodstream. Eating an equivalent dose of Tylenol would be just as lethal.

Plutonium should be handled with care but let's be honest about just how lethal it might be.

What is the lethal dose of plutonium? I went to look it up. About 22 milligrams.
http://www.newworldencyclopedi...

The toxicity of plutonium is in dispute; nuclear industry advocates point to the low chemical toxicity of plutonium and ability of a worker to hold a kilogram brick of the material without protection; if inhaled or digested, however, plutonium's effects due to radioactivity overwhelm the effects of plutonium's chemical interactions with the body, and the LD50 dose for intravenous injection in an adult human weighing 70 kilograms is calculated to be approximately 22 milligrams (based on extrapolation from tests on dogs).

What substance is also lethal at that dose? Tylenol.
http://www.newworldencyclopedi...

The toxic dose of acetaminophen is highly variable. In adults, single doses above 10 grams or 140 mg/kg have a reasonable likelihood of causing toxicity. In adults, single doses of more than 25 grams have a high risk of lethality.

For plutonium to be lethal someone would have to have 22 milligrams of plutonium injected into their bloodstream. Eating an equivalent dose of Tylenol would be just as lethal.

Plutonium should be handled with care but let's be honest about just how lethal it might be.

When there are extreme left and right sides this is what needs to be prevented. This is the current situation that the US is in today, extremism. Unfortunately, it seems that the most vocal are only blaming one side for all this chaos, but it does take two to have a conflict. You censure one side and not the other, there is only one outcome for that. This is what needs to be prevented. To make my point, why is it that your remarks only addressed the far-right thugs and not the other? There were heavily armed thugs on BOTH SIDES of the disagreements in that time period and the deaths of non-participating citizens that got caught up in the middle of it shows that (The Early Years). This is the biggest issue that I have seen so far is again, that the most vocal are only blaming one side just as you are doing.

I stand corrected on Korea. According to various sources including http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Division_of_Korea it was

> On August 10, 1945 two young colonels, Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel, supervised by Brigadier General George Lincoln, working on extremely short notice, proposed the 38th parallel as the administrative line for the two armies.

So 5 days before the end of the war. The soviets had troops in Korea and the U.S. did not. While the detail of Korea's split was not done at Yalta it seems in line with the split of Germany, Austria and in line with what Stalin wanted for Japan. Is there any evidence the U.S. expected to occupy all of Korea or that Korea was even much on its mind at the time of Yalta? ...and what point are you trying to make? Other than being obnoxious?

There is the Chandrasekhar limit which defines the maximum size of a White dwarf star .

There is a theoretical maximum limit for a neutron star, which seems to be about 3 - 3.2. This also applies to pulsars, which are spinning neutron stars.

There is also an upper limit to the size that a black hole can become

There is the Schwarzfield radius which defines the escape limit for the speed of light.

Maybe the maximum size of neutron star is the minimum size of a black hole? Or is there something inbetween?

And this:
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Ninhursag

Even the Eve myth was taken from the Sumerian.

The weight of the Earth comes in useful in calculating how many space habitats you could build from it. :-)

Let's see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O'Neill_cylinder
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Space_habitat
http://ramblingsonthefutureofhumanity.blogspot.com/2009/10/designing-space-habitat.html

You can support 15 million people with a habitat requiring 3000 million metric tons of mass (if I got that right), or about
3 billion tons. (One could also ballpark that mass calculation, but I won't right now, just by thinking about a shell of six feet deep material with some surface area.)

The Earth weighs, as above, about 5 billion trillion imperial tons (close enough to metric tons). So, if we vandalized and vaporized the Earth to build space habitats (not that we know how yet), we could build a trillion space habitats that each support 15 million people. Or, that would be about 15 billion billion people, or about a billion times more people than the Earth supports now. I have not double checked that, but it sounds more or less right within a thousand or so. :-)

Anyway, while I don't recommend disassembling the Earth to make way for a space habitat(or hyperspace) bypass, as there are plenty of asteroids and moons in the solar system that are easier to use for mass, and it makes sense to preserve Earth as a historical landmark to our past, this points out that people like William Catton who are spouting imminent danger from "overpopulation" are more just lacking basic math skills and some imagination. :-)
"[p2p-research] Earth's carrying capacity and Catton"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-August/004123.html
"Bottleneck: Humanity's Impending Impasse, by William R. Catton, Jr."
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5954
Contrast with someone who though the empowered human imagination was the ultimate resource:
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

These calculations have life-and-death consequences as relate to human wars and decisions about having children or abortions. Seriously. Whether someone is stockpiling ammo for the "overpopulation die-off" or trying to get a job at NASA or private or volunteer efforts to build space habitats or even just design better solar panels hinges on this sort of basic math.

The consequences that flow from this simple calculation about the weight of the Earth and the weight of a space habitat in comparison are politically profound. They suggest we should not be fighting over oil as a form of dogma-driven collective "suicide" but instead should be putting a lot of time and effort in developing a serious space program and other advanced technology, but from an abundance paradigm where the wealth is widely shared, not a scarcity paradigm where wealth is tightly hoarded. See also my essay:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based ap

Sorry, sir, I changed my sig because of folks like you. It reads:

Citation War - A1: Correct, NotCited. A2: Correct, Cited. B1: Wrong, NotCited B2: Wrong, Flawed Citation.

Because all of slashdot seems to hide when I start a reply, you made me open seven tabs to compose this. But here we go.

----
Section A - you vs. poster above you.

You said: "[citations needed]very badly since you seem to be the only person on the entire internet to have ever heard any of these stories."

Calling his comment some 75% correct, that makes your remark about 75% libel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel ...libel (for written or otherwise published words)--is the communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, ... a negative image. It is usually.. a requirement that this claim be false and that the publication is communicated to someone other than the person defamed...

Retire the Freudian acronym. This is a partial list of Slashdot Lawyers. If I were a lawyer I would be on my own list. I am not on that list.
http://taophoenix.paradoxservers.net/Freedom/Slashdot_Lawyers.html

Saying this is "too long - didn't read" tries to cover your fallacious post with a fallacious ad hominem attack. Your comment directly says his post was not long enough, so to discard the requested length below is a red herring.

-----
Section B - Poster's comment #2.

"2. Aspirin was patented well after a similar process for making Salicylic Acid on an industrial scale was. The office decided, with no precidents, that making the same chemical in pure enough form that it was safe for medicinal use was novel. When challenged on it, the USPO said they were going through a bottle a day deciding patent claims and were not about to reject rewarding this claim no matter what the law said."

"Salicylic Acid on an industrial scale"... also known as "Salicylic acid is commercially prepared from sodium salicylate, which is produced from sodium phenoxide and carbon dioxide at high pressure and temperature in the Kolbe-Schmitt reaction."
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Salicylic_acid

(In about the mid 1840's) ...Kolbe also synthesized salicylic acid and showed its value as a preservative. The process was named Kolbe synthesis (or Kolbe-Schmitt reaction)...

Going to
http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/History/mid-nineteen.htm

Then, in 1853, French chemist Charles F. Gerhardt synthesized a primitive form of aspirin, a derivative of salicylic acid.

In 1897 Felix Hoffmann, a German chemist working at the Bayer division of I.G. Farber, discovered a better method for synthesizing the drug.

Going to
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Aspirin#Synthesis_of_aspirin

On March 6, 1899, Bayer registered Aspirin as a trademark. However, the German company lost the right to use the trademark in many countries as the Allies seized and resold its foreign assets after World War I. The right to use "Aspirin" in the United States (along with all other Bayer trademarks) was purchased from the U.S. government by Sterling Drug in 1918. However, even before the patent for the drug expired in 1917, Bayer had been unable to stop competitors from copying the formula and using the name elsewhere, and so, with a flooded market, the public was unable to recognize "Aspirin" as coming from only one manufacturer. Sterling was subsequently unable to prevent "Aspirin" from being ruled a genericized trademark in a U.S. federal court in 1921. Sterling was ultimately acquired by Bayer in 1994, but this did not rest

Sorry, sir, I changed my sig because of folks like you. It reads:

Citation War - A1: Correct, NotCited. A2: Correct, Cited. B1: Wrong, NotCited B2: Wrong, Flawed Citation.

Because all of slashdot seems to hide when I start a reply, you made me open seven tabs to compose this. But here we go.

----
Section A - you vs. poster above you.

You said: "[citations needed]very badly since you seem to be the only person on the entire internet to have ever heard any of these stories."

Calling his comment some 75% correct, that makes your remark about 75% libel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel ...libel (for written or otherwise published words)--is the communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, ... a negative image. It is usually.. a requirement that this claim be false and that the publication is communicated to someone other than the person defamed...

Retire the Freudian acronym. This is a partial list of Slashdot Lawyers. If I were a lawyer I would be on my own list. I am not on that list.
http://taophoenix.paradoxservers.net/Freedom/Slashdot_Lawyers.html

Saying this is "too long - didn't read" tries to cover your fallacious post with a fallacious ad hominem attack. Your comment directly says his post was not long enough, so to discard the requested length below is a red herring.

-----
Section B - Poster's comment #2.

"2. Aspirin was patented well after a similar process for making Salicylic Acid on an industrial scale was. The office decided, with no precidents, that making the same chemical in pure enough form that it was safe for medicinal use was novel. When challenged on it, the USPO said they were going through a bottle a day deciding patent claims and were not about to reject rewarding this claim no matter what the law said."

"Salicylic Acid on an industrial scale"... also known as "Salicylic acid is commercially prepared from sodium salicylate, which is produced from sodium phenoxide and carbon dioxide at high pressure and temperature in the Kolbe-Schmitt reaction."
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Salicylic_acid

(In about the mid 1840's) ...Kolbe also synthesized salicylic acid and showed its value as a preservative. The process was named Kolbe synthesis (or Kolbe-Schmitt reaction)...

Going to
http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/History/mid-nineteen.htm

Then, in 1853, French chemist Charles F. Gerhardt synthesized a primitive form of aspirin, a derivative of salicylic acid.

In 1897 Felix Hoffmann, a German chemist working at the Bayer division of I.G. Farber, discovered a better method for synthesizing the drug.

Going to
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Aspirin#Synthesis_of_aspirin

On March 6, 1899, Bayer registered Aspirin as a trademark. However, the German company lost the right to use the trademark in many countries as the Allies seized and resold its foreign assets after World War I. The right to use "Aspirin" in the United States (along with all other Bayer trademarks) was purchased from the U.S. government by Sterling Drug in 1918. However, even before the patent for the drug expired in 1917, Bayer had been unable to stop competitors from copying the formula and using the name elsewhere, and so, with a flooded market, the public was unable to recognize "Aspirin" as coming from only one manufacturer. Sterling was subsequently unable to prevent "Aspirin" from being ruled a genericized trademark in a U.S. federal court in 1921. Sterling was ultimately acquired by Bayer in 1994, but this did not rest

Your comment appears to say that haloes were widely used in pre-Christian religious depictions. That is not established in your quoted source. [...]

Just because you looked in the wrong place doesn't mean they don't exist.

I looked at the source you mentioned first, it didn't support your statement, I asked for expansion. Nor did I say they didn't exist, nor even that I'd looked in the right places. I've been trawling around lots of sites looking for pre-Christian images of haloes as everyone says they were widely used by everybody in depictions all over before CE. Yours is the first hint of actually imagery.

The pictures from Taq-e Bostan (eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taq-e_Bostan, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithra, http://static.newworldencyclopedia.org/1/10/ArdashirII_.jpg) are either Ardashir I or II. I again can't find a better image but if you notice each of the old-king, new-king and priest wear crowns/helms with what appears to be a fabric band (ribbon) extending down, on the right 2 images this comes down in drapes from the central crown on the left images it appears to hang from the ray-like crown (reminiscent of Aztec headdresses, http://images.travelpod.com/users/mebiner/2.1230803220.elaborate-aztec-headdress.jpg). In the other images Ardashir's crown appears to have an ostrich feather or similar. It seems a leap to suppose that only one of the crowns depicted is an artistic device.

The fabric pieces can be seen best in images like http://flickr.com/photos/37514330@N00/3202629664 [or http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/16084455.jpg%5D which unfortunately doesn't include the priest (Izad Mithra, or in the Taq-e Bostan page it's said to be Izad Bahram; Izad being the Zoroastrian form of Yazata which means "worshipful" and some render as "god").

It's the best I've seen however, a good find, dating from 300BCE around Persia. I'd want to see other instances of "haloes" in the Persian culture of the time to be convinced on this, as like I said I think it's just a picture of a headpiece.

And you suck at reading too, if you didn't even follow the link [http://home.comcast.net/~taoistresource/art_halo.html] in the "quoted source" you complain about.

You did say "according to this page" and not "according to links on this page". Obviously being an illiterate makes it hard for me to check your post to be sure, perhaps you could do that?

Buddhist art and writings don't appear to exist from before about 100-200AD the canon of Buddhist lore being passed down orally since 400BCE. Whilst that link shows images it doesn't date the images, so establishing a date from them is impossible. They appear mainly to be Thangka which date from a Nepalese influence in 600AD.

The greek image of apollo is one I know, it's about 200AD IIRC (certainly post-Christian). The others look like standard depictions of Helios, being the sun after all, they're more than likely CE. The naive image at the bottom is similar in showing gods of the Sun, Dawn and Morning Star, that they should be shining is not necessarily a depiction of deity/holiness but a simple reflection of their purpose - but they'd be relevant if dated early.

Hindu art is full of haloes, eg http://www.hindu.com/fline/fl2503/stories/20080215250306500.htm the end of that page shows a Jaina shrine from 900AD. "Hindu art" by T. Richard Blurton states that imagery of Vishnu appeared in the "early centuries AD

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Alfred_P._Sloan,_Jr.

wild tobacco is almost hallucinogenic and non-addictive whereas commercial tobacco is just addictive because of its extreme nicotene content.

Sorry, but that's simply incorrect. From "Growing the Hallucinogens":

Uncured tobacco is very potent -- the Indians who used it would often pass out after as little as one cigarette, and "communicate with the gods." This type of tobacco should be smoked with caution. The danger here is death from overdose rather than addiction. When used as a ritual narcotic it is not smoked often enough to result in addiction.

And Wikipedia's entry on wild tobacco:

Wild tobacco is native to the southwestern United States, Mexico, and parts of South America. Its botanical name is Nicotiana rustica. [snip] "Nicotiana rustica" is the most potent strain of tobacco known to man it is commonly used for tobacco dust or pesticides.

Note that article quotes a nicotine content of 6.5% for Y1, while the entry for Nicotiana Rustica claims 9%; in other words, the wild variety contains more nicotine than the cultivar specifically bred for a high nicotine content by tobacco companies.

Finally, New World Encyclopedia's entry on tobacco:

Nicotine is also a powerful psychochemical, which acts on the nervous system. In large doses it can be a hallucinogen. In smaller doses it affects the functioning of the nervous system in various ways, as well as affecting the circulatory and endocrine systems. These effects are considered pleasurable and desirable by tobacco users.

The hallucinogenic compound in wild tobacco is nicotine. It isn't addictive is because it simply isn't possible to smoke wild tobacco in the same quantities as the cured tobacco used in cigarettes without dying; or, looking at it the other way, cigarettes are addictive because they aren't strong enough to have a hallucinogenic effect, so you can chain smoke them and remain conscious.

Please don't compare sound levels levels in air and human hearing thresholds against sound levels in water and marine mammals. For example, sperm whale clicks are at about 230 dB (source. Your paragraph suggests that this level would cause physical pain and hearing loss.

There's a comment on this article further down, here, that goes into some of the relevant physics and biology.