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City Officials Almost Ban Foam Cups
localhost00 writes "The city of Aliso Viejo, CA nearly banned foam cups when they learned they are produced from a substance known as 'dihydrogen monoxide.' A paralegal working for the city apparantly found a professionally designed web site put up to describe the dangerous properties of this chemical.
Apparantly, the report about Dihydrogen Monoxide was written by a then 14-year-old Nathan Zohner who was researching the gullibility of fifty ninth graders."
Tricked by a 14 year old, what is the government in CA comming too.
You know they forgot to put the word gullible in the dictionary right?
Thousands of people die on beaches every year from DHM inhalation.
Everything seemed to be going so nice
'till the end of all beings punched right through the ice
I hope no one tells them about the Pacific. We could be in serious trouble.
Dihydrogen Monoxide is nothing. It's not very dangerous. The real kill is the Hydrogen Hydroxide. Closely related but much more dangerous. We should ban it first.
Remember, 50% of people are below average...
In my experience they dont allow things on the internet that are not true. Case in point I will be getting a check from Bill Gates real soon as I have done my part and forwarded his email.
Latest news: the 14-year old has just been hired by SCO as their new "information minister"
I need to sue my employer now. I've been exposed to DHM for many years now, and I fear that it may be taking its toll on me. I've noticed many more wrinkles after particularly long sessions, not to mention a slickness to my skin.
Ah, the perils of lifeguarding.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Correction, fifty ninth graders and one gullable paralegal.
Not more than you need, just more than you want
It is half acid and half base!
Can you imagine? It is like drinking battery acid and then eating lye soap!
It's pretty cool when you can get modded up for posting a link that was in the article write-up. ;)
At least those labels would fit well with the "cholesterol-free!" labels I see on some bottles of water. What are they going to come up with next? "Nutrient free!" "Necessary for YOUR survival!"
"City Officials Almost Ban Foam Cups"
And this is almost news...
Little Johnny was a chemist.
Little Johnny is no more.
'Cause what he thought was H2O.
Was really H2SO4
This product is known to the state of California to cause an unknown disease.
The state of California is an unknown disease.
And I say too right! Anything with the word "monoxide" in it *should* be banned!
Yeah, that's been in my usenet sig for ages.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
I mean, making assumptions on vague wording and overblown generalizations... BTW, Windows is the tool of the devil and Linux is Jesus!
What I want to know is who would consider an MBA graduate an intellectual?!
Business has nothing to do with Science.
Yes, but it keeps my coffee so toasty warm!
You'd think when they'd been in school THAT long, they wouldn't be so gullible!
I saw an ad for "diet water" in the Sunday circulars. I wonder how you reduce the calories of water.
Reminds me of an oxygen canister I saw at home depot a little bit ago. It carried a warning label on it stating that oxygen was known to cause cancer in the state of california. This label was about as big as the one letting you know that it was flammable.
Didn't you recognize Penn and Teller as a rip-off of prior skepticism? What goes around comes around.
Hydroxylic acid...
It makes dihydrogen monoxide look like water in comparison...
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Reminds me of the advice of one of my professors - "Live on the East Coast for a while, but be prepared to leave, because for every year you live out there, you get more cynical. Live on the West Coast for a while, but be prepared to leave, because for every year you live out there, you lose an IQ point."
"What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
I learned a lot from the recent election in California. I learned that you can get a job even when you have no qualifications. So, I've decided to be a supermodel.
The latest performance enhancer...Used by even 1st grade athletes.. http://www.sheldonbrown.com/w.html
Ah quit your bitching! As a Californian speaking, I'm proud to say that our state will literally break off from the rest of the US anyway....maybe to hang out with Hawaii. Alaska can come too.
Join the TWIT army now!
It would probably be wise for them to avoid dihydrogen monoxide altogether and Buy dehydrated water instead.
Explaining the joke: Effectively sucking the humor out of a gag since 1982.
Paul Lenhart writes words!
Obviously they did zero research on this before they had their knee-jerk reaction.
No, they did bad research. This is like quoting a piece in The Onion as having come from "America's Finest News Soure" in a research paper.
Not everything on the Internet is true, and not everything that looks like research or news is really ture. There's a sucker born every minute...
We must protect our precious bodily fluids from communist plots to poison us and warp the minds of our children. DHMO is the chemical most commonly used to deliver Flourine in our public water supply!
I always place it on the head of an unsuspecting river otter and pour acetone on it. It instantly disintegrates and the otter whisks the remains away to a recycling center.
> Either way though I think it's hairsplitting, really.
nah, that would be H2O2 - hydrogen peroxide
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
You haven't looked at the city's web site then. :-)
City of Aliso Viejo
dihydrogen monoxide is nasty thing, which can harbor bacteria and other nasty things to you.
It is best to dilute it slightly with ethanol, as this kills the bugs.
Adding hops, barley, yeast, and letting it mix for a while is a very good way of adding the ethanol.
Don't forget the aluminum and/or magnesium powder in your recipe. Without that addition, your sticky gas/styrofoam mixture isn't particuarly effective.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
There's another good reason not to go there.
> Live on the West Coast for a while, but be
> prepared to leave, because for every year you live
> out there, you lose an IQ point.
Just because California is a communist state that lowers your IQ, doesn't mean it takes up the entire West Coast. There are perfectly fine places to live in Washington state and Canada.
repeated use of hydrogen peroxide causes the hair to disintegrate, i.e. split
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Christ, do I have a story about that. Luckily nothing bad came of it.
I used to have this idiot friend Mike when I was a kid (14 or so). I was a freshman in high school, and he was a grade below me (in middle school).
One day I was showing him just that; taking styrofoam and disolving it in gasoline makes a pretty nice fire display. We had our fun in the backyard, and left the rest in a bucket outside.
A month goes by. Mike calls me up asking if he can have what's left in the bucket. I say sure, why not.
Now the styrofoam we used was the green stuff that veggies and meat are served in, so when we started it was a nice green slime. Now it had the consistency of Play-Doh.
I thought nothing of this, until the next day, @ lunch, when there was a schoolwide announcement: "WOULD ARTHUR PEALE PLEASE COME TO THE PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE IMMEDIATELY!" yes, those capital letters are there to display the fact that they were SHOUTING into the microphone, as well as having turned the volume almost all the way up on the PA system.
I head to the main office, and the secretary looks at me and says, "Oh, you're in trouble now, Arthur! Go see Mr. Perry, the Vice Principal."
I enter his office, and that's when I notice the two uniformed police officers standing there. They invite me to have a seat.
At this point I have no clue what's going on, until one officer says "Arthur, I'd like to see your license to make explosives, please."
I, of course, being 14, did not have one. I was clueless about what was going on, until they mentioned a green substance that a "Mike Parsons" had brought to school, and had been lighting out in the parking lot with some friends of his.
Aparently word got around to what he was doing, someone approached a teacher, the police and fire department were called, along with a bomb unit. The stuff looked so strange and alien they had no clue what kind of explosive it was. It was being treated very gingerly.
After I told the officers what it was, they told me that they weren't going to press charges. Mike got a week suspension, and I went back to class.
There is a legal term, and most people aren't aware of it, but the phrase is an old norse one:
urakompletfawkinidjut
It kind of sums it up and really addresses the concerns you have about these kinds of sites. I personally think the norse phrase says it all, don't you?
In the sweepstakes for legislative stupidity, I always like to play this card. The bill House Bill No. 246, Indiana State Legislature, 1897, reportedly set the value of pi to an incorrect rational approximation (ie. "3").
The "creator" of this new value of pi listed as it advantages that it was much easier for school children to use. He even went so far as to offer the new value of pi at no charge to Indiana for use in their school books, however all others would be charged a royality!
Here is a link, but a better link is here,
And in related news, the city of Aliso Viejo, CA has decided to legislate a simpler value of pi = 3.15, which is much more accurate than the value of 3 preferred by the Alabama legislature. They based this decision on the well-documented scientific research of Dr Richard Kimber.
Paul Gillingwater
MBA, CISSP, CISM
After long sessions of dealing with infected MS machines, I can tell you truthfully that they do cause extreme illness with symptoms including:
a) Increased heartrate, anger
b) Sweaty palms
c) Migraines
d) Vision impairment
Of course, other OS's aren't so great either... I've noticed a trend of body odour and poor social tendancies that seem to afflict Linux users, and the Mac users generally seem to suffer from some form of uncomfortable constipation issue.
Whoa, what school goes up to fiftyninth grade? High school lasts long enough already !!!
Oh wait, nevermind.
I was quite alarmed by your trenchant essay regarding the insidious substance: dihydrogen monoxide. I asked my physician to perform testing to determine if I might be showing signs of exposure to this chemical. Indeed, the results indicated high concentrations in nearly every cell of my body! I am attempting to reduce the concentration of this pollutant in my system via vigorous consumption of its natural nemesis, anhydrous ethanol. I fully expect this therapy to alleviate my concerns.
One more similar hilarious joke site:
Creationist Science Fair
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
Several years back, and just for grins, I got my AP Chemistry class to do some "research" on students by posting signs by the water fountains that said "Danger! These fountains contain dihydrogen monoxide." The signs also outlined some of the dangers of dhmo. Then, we sat back at a distance and recorded reactions by various students.
The best line: "They can't make me drink this stuff! I'm telling my mom!"
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.