Volcanic Ash Heading Towards North America

chocomilko writes "St. John's International Airport, the easternmost airport in Canada, has begun canceling flights due to worries of ash from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano, leaving travelers stranded after the weekend's Juno awards festival. Early reports stated that there was a 30% chance ash would reach the island by early Monday; Air Canada has issued an all-day travel advisory. A thick blanket of fog currently covering the city isn't helping matters, either."

Comments

Blame Canada!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is all Saddam's fault, trying to escape from Hell and head back to Canada.

How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[yossarianuk]

I'm just waiting now for Fox/Glen Beck,etc to blame Obama in some way for this.....

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[Anonymous Coward]

Kind of like everyone blamed Bush for anything that happened in the previous 8 years? Including a few hurricanes?

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Stopping flights, all over Europe? Pull the other one, mate. It's got bells on it. This is another dubious modeling outcome from the MET's GIGO simulations.

There was only one source that managed to stop the entire air-traffic in Europe. It was a mere computer simulation that came from the same jerks who are trying to convience the public of the CO2-scam since years.

The British MET-office took some data from the first hours(!)of the outbrak -- proceeded with their usual "gigo" (garbage in -- garbage out) -- and made one of their usual "predictions" -- that rarely turns out to be reality.

During all those next days this first data-set never got adapted, updated with actual data or even checked again.

Yesterday some European airline-managers were beginning to smell the rat and undertook first test-flights -- where they experienced no harm at all.

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I seen turn about is still fair play.

In other words, stop acting like a jackass if you don't like being jackassed on.

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[FreeUser]

Kind of like everyone blamed Bush for anything that happened in the previous 8 years? Including a few hurricanes?

No one blamed bush for Hurricane Katrina. Just for sitting on his ass when it hit, for appointing unqualified and flagrantly incompetent butt-buddies, excuse me, political henchmen to run FEMA, and for deliberately underfunding and eviscerating FEMA and nearly every other non-military federal agency in order to deliberately make them incapable of carrying out their mandate. Which worked brilliantly in his war against "big government", until we actually needed that government to rescue tens of thousands of people.

Then we got our act together, at many times the expense, and with many times the casualties, than it would have entailed if a competent president had appointed a competent leader of FEMA, and not gutted the agency of funds and logistical support.

And yes, everyone (except the hard-core right) quite correctly blames him for that. And the illegal war he started, and the financial implosion that was a direct result of Republican lassaiz-faire bank regulation (and which the Republicans are trying to continue today by filibustering any meaningful bank reform).

It's bad enough they do these things and then try to make us feel bad for pointing out the error of their ways. It's even more disburbing how utterly incapable of learning from their mistakes, and correcting their ways, these idealogues are. They'd rather be stubbornly wrong regardless of the evidence, than have a hint of flip-flopping on an issue(what most of the rest of us would call "correcting a mistake")

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[Trent Hawkins]

I'm just waiting now for Fox/Glen Beck,etc to blame Obama in some way for this.....

Rush Limbaugh FTW

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[sheph]

Wait... he's not? If Bush could cause Katrina, I'm pretty sure the insidious Obama administration is capable of causing a volcano to erupt. It's part of his plan for global domination dontcha know.

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[VolciMaster]

Kind of like everyone blamed Bush for anything that happened in the previous 8 years? Including a few hurricanes?

No one blamed bush for Hurricane Katrina. Just for sitting on his ass when it hit, for appointing unqualified and flagrantly incompetent butt-buddies, excuse me, political henchmen to run FEMA, and for deliberately underfunding and eviscerating FEMA and nearly every other non-military federal agency in order to deliberately make them incapable of carrying out their mandate. Which worked brilliantly in his war against "big government", until we actually needed that government to rescue tens of thousands of people.

Then we got our act together, at many times the expense, and with many times the casualties, than it would have entailed if a competent president had appointed a competent leader of FEMA, and not gutted the agency of funds and logistical support.

And yes, everyone (except the hard-core right) quite correctly blames him for that. And the illegal war he started, and the financial implosion that was a direct result of Republican lassaiz-faire bank regulation (and which the Republicans are trying to continue today by filibustering any meaningful bank reform).

It's bad enough they do these things and then try to make us feel bad for pointing out the error of their ways. It's even more disburbing how utterly incapable of learning from their mistakes, and correcting their ways, these idealogues are. They'd rather be stubbornly wrong regardless of the evidence, than have a hint of flip-flopping on an issue(what most of the rest of us would call "correcting a mistake")

Regardless of whether or not the head of FEMA was qualified, what is FEMA's purpose? They are an "emergency" management agency. Louisiana and the city of New Orleans asked them to wait to come down.

The mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Louisiana should take most or all of the blame for damages and injuries incurred during that hurricane. Hurricanes happen. New Orleans is below sea level. Katrina was a hurricane. It was heading towards New Orleans. And yet no one ordered an evacuation of the city until the storm was just hours away?

Likewise, why were out-of-state contractors hired to work on the cleanup and rebuilding? Excluding folks like myself who volunteered to go work there with aid teams like the Red Cross, Samaritan's Purse, etc, why were local folks not hired? Sure, some of them were unqualified to build bridges. But how qualified do you ave to be to take a shovel and muck-out a building?

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[Ocyris]

And why is it I don't hear either side giving any real consideration to a reinstatement of Glass-Steagall? No, they want to give the power and responsibility to the FED. The very institution at the heart of the matter which also didn't see it all coming. All the talk of regulation reform is just moving deck chairs on the Titanic.

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[Anonymous Coward]

DON'T let the little fact that FEMA can't actually go in and do anything if the Governer doesn't ask for it. hope that doesn't cause you any problems with your statement, or the facts that there were hundreds of trucks and workers just WAITING at the state border to help actually change anything. - YOU just keep blaiming who you want.

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[jav1231]

This is a point people want to gloss over. Blind hatred for Bush has fomented ignorance of the worse kind. Wanna know why we lag in education? Idiots who believe shit like this. These are the same ingrates who voted Nagin back into office. Frankly, they need another hurricane.

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[lymond01]

You're just angry because Bush's decisions are affecting you directly. If you were a multi-millionaire who'd received the tip about failing mortgage markets, you'd be praising our ex-President. It's not his fault you're poor.

(I am, of course, totally kidding.)

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[CAIMLAS]

No one blamed bush for Hurricane Katrina

Actually, they did. A lot of people said the Government, under Bush, used some sort of weather modification/seismic device in Alaska to change the weather patterns and push the storm directly towards New Orleans - because Bush and the Republicats hateses the Blacks.

Or some such rot. It was even on major broadcast a number of times in passing, and in quite a few printed sources.

Also, a lot of your statements are a bit out of whack. FEMA's funding was cut directly, but they assumed a much larger budget of control: they were placed in control of emergency coordination, not so much being on the ground themselves. This was somewhat difficult on account of the "on the ground" locals being complete dipshits and insisting everything was OK prior to the storm, even though it was not. It took time to respond because they needed to bring in help from outside, as can be expected.

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[Anonymous Coward]

They'd rather be stubbornly wrong regardless of the evidence, than have a hint of flip-flopping on an issue(what most of the rest of us would call "correcting a mistake")

Maybe it's because "correcting a mistake" gets them accused of flip-flopping and breaking their promises.

They really can't win, you know.

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[need4mospd]

....and the financial implosion that was a direct result of Republican lassaiz-faire bank regulation (and which the Republicans are trying to continue today by filibustering any meaningful bank reform).

If you think the economic downturn is solely a Republican problem, you really need to get out more. I won't deny the harm Bush caused, he was a moron to the highest degree. But to place the blame on any one party is foolish at best.

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, signed by Clinton and proposed by Phil Gramm(R), allowed commercial banks, investment banks, securities firms, and insurance companies to consolidate. Without it the disastrous derivatives mess could not have happened, because regulated banks with access to The Fed window, not to mention FDIC depositor protection, could not have engaged in derivative trades. GLBA was nothing more or less than a license to loot this nation.

One example of many. You're getting screwed no matter which side of the coin is face up.

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[megamerican]

No one is to blame for the eruption of a volcano but the stopping of air traffic can be blamed on government fearmongering. The airspace closings were entirely based on computer models, which according to every test flight taken by major air carriers in the past few days, has been proven to be completely wrong.

British Airways, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Air France-KLM Group all said today that airspace restrictions should be lifted, citing test flights into the ash cloud that showed no sign of impairment to aircraft performance. About 81,000 services have been canceled since the Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted on April 14, spewing dust that could cause jet engines to fail by melting and then congealing in the turbines.

“These decisions were based on theoretical models,” International Air Transport Association Chief Executive Officer Giovanni Bisignani said today in Paris. “But the losses and chaos are not theoretical. When in a few weeks this situation is solved it will be a very embarrassing story for Europe.”

Hopefully, our government officials in North America won't make the same mistake.

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[Anonymous Coward]

"No one blamed bush for Hurricane Katrina. Just for sitting on his ass when it hit ..."

Oh, come on. That's not really a fair assessment of what he did beforehand. He didn't sit on his ass. He flew to scheduled political events in Arizona (including Senator McCain's birthday) and in Rancho Cucamonga, California on the day that the hurricane hit Louisiana (August 29th).

"Sit on his ass", he did not. He was busy shaking hands, cutting cakes, and talking about Medicare. :-)

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[Anonymous Coward]

No one blamed bush for Hurricane Katrina. Just for sitting on his ass when it hit

What was he supposed to do? He offered the help of the military but the governor of Louisiana declined the assistance. His only option would have been to declare an insurrection in the state and take the state away from the governor (a woman and a democrat - how would that have looked?).

Yeah, you're not going to hear about that from the liberal news media.

It's hard to believe in the day of Obama and company, but there are limits to the power of the federal government.

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[2obvious4u]

Why the hell do we need FEMA? Isn't that why we have the largest military (budget) in the world? The National Guard and the Air force should have immediately mobilized to New Orleans just hours after the storm cleared. Supplies should have been air dropped from Dobbins Air Force Base and other nearby bases. The military is organized and equipped. FEMA is just bureaucracy, its better the use the resources at hand.

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[Silentknyght]

No one is to blame for the eruption of a volcano but the stopping of air traffic can be blamed on government fearmongering. The airspace closings were entirely based on computer models, which according to every test flight taken by major air carriers in the past few days, has been proven to be completely wrong.

British Airways, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Air France-KLM Group all said today that airspace restrictions should be lifted, citing test flights into the ash cloud that showed no sign of impairment to aircraft performance. About 81,000 services have been canceled since the Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted on April 14, spewing dust that could cause jet engines to fail by melting and then congealing in the turbines.

“These decisions were based on theoretical models,” International Air Transport Association Chief Executive Officer Giovanni Bisignani said today in Paris. “But the losses and chaos are not theoretical. When in a few weeks this situation is solved it will be a very embarrassing story for Europe.”

Hopefully, our government officials in North America won't make the same mistake.

If I were in that position--and I would hope should you be in such a position, too--I would err on the side of caution. I think it's unfounded to call their actions "fearmongering." The models they have are only as good as the data; in the light of this most recent event, the powers that be are bound to have some new data to improve future models.

Or do you honestly believe that the governments of the world, when presented with modeled, scientific information, should disregard it? There'd be an equally large or larger outcry, and I daresay it would be justified.

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[dcw3]

Why the hell do we need FEMA? Isn't that why we have the largest military (budget) in the world? The National Guard and the Air force should have immediately mobilized to New Orleans just hours after the storm cleared. Supplies should have been air dropped from Dobbins Air Force Base and other nearby bases. The military is organized and equipped. FEMA is just bureaucracy, its better the use the resources at hand.

Well, let's see. The AF isn't funded for it, and isn't trained for it, and is busy fighting wars. If you want to reorganize the govt., that's fine, but the military budget isn't there to pay for natural disasters, that's what FEMA was supposed to do. If that's what you expect, than convince congress to disband FEMA and give their budget to the military for that purpose. Hope that's not "2obvious4u". :-P

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[SnarfQuest]

Oh no. It's George W Bushes fault for not signing the koyoto treaty.

His failure caused all this Global Warming, which caused a proliferation of gays, which made God angry, which is why we are having all these earthquakes, which caused all of these volcanoes.

It's 2012 all over again!

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[pixelpusher220]

A significant point is that most of the 'damage' was done during GOP controlled Congresses. Yes Clinton was there for some of it, but Bush took massive advantage of a lapdog Congress. So yes, Bush is much more responsible. We still haven't seen all of the ramifications of the last 8 years.

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[pixelpusher220]

From a self professed left wing liberal, I wholeheartedly agree. Why not put something back in place that quite clearly worked well.

Sadly it probably stems from the ego's on both sides, nobody would support simply saying "they were right" instead of putting their brand spanking new plan they wrote themselves* in place.

* for various definitions of self - lobbyist, inside influence, staffer, etc...
BR sigh

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[pixelpusher220]

Really? Bush, the Prez has unlimited power during wartime guy? Guess what, by their own definition we're in wartime so he's quite clearly allowed to do whatever the hell he wants. - his and his lawyers impression anyway.

You can't claim you can violate the Constitution 'just because' and then claim it prevented you from intervening.

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[2obvious4u]

Its called the Defense Budget for a reason. What do we really need to defend against? Not foreign governments. We haven't needed to defend ourselves against a foreign government since the Cold War. Mad works. All that is left is extremists. What additional training would the military need? They have the best logistics in the world. Did you see the invasion of Iraq on TV. The logistics are amazing. You think if someone dropped a Nuke on one of the US cities that FEMA would be there to restore order? No the military is already set up for it. Who does the biological disaster training? I'm pretty sure it is the National Guard, not FEMA. Besides, look how China handles natural disasters, there military is on top of it and on the scene within hours. They are the only organization with the resources, authority and power to actually do anything in an emergency. There is was no clear chain of command for FEMA pre Katrina and I doubt it has improved that much since. The Coast Guard, National Guard and other parts of the Military are already equipped and trained enough to handle a major disaster, it wouldn't take much additional training in order to move FEMA's responsibilities under some department in the Pentagon. Army bases are all over the world and could be stocked with disaster relief equipment and then quickly and easily mobilized and air dropped to any location in the world.

It is obvious, however buddy political appointments and the status quo keep a lot of obvious and good ideas from ever gaining traction through all the bureaucracy, especially when that means closing down an entire segment of the government. It is really easy to expand government it is almost impossible to retract it.

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[Smauler]

Test flights have resulted in relatively worrying problems. Those were not computer models. Airspace closures have been enacted on the "better safe than sorry" principal, but would you really want to be the official to stand up to the press if a commercial airliner came down because of this? The airspace closures were absolutely _not_ entirely based on computer models, there is lots of clear evidence there is volcanic ash in the atmosphere over much of northern Europe at the moment.

I'm all for calling the goverment out for nannying when they are, but I'm not sure they are now. Unless you know something no one else in the world does - ie. the extent and density of the volcanic ash, you've got no real basis for assertions of fearmongering.

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[riverat1]

I would point out that what nailed New Orleans so hard was not Katrina itself but the failure of the levees. The major damage from Katrina itself was east of there in Mississippi. Even if the storm surge had overtopped the levees during Katrina the damage would not have been nearly as much in NO if the levees had held. I don't think the damage to the levees was obvious until noon or so on the day after Katrina passed.

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[Fred_A]

The airspace closings were entirely based on computer models, which according to every test flight taken by major air carriers in the past few days, has been proven to be completely wrong..

Note that according to your link, the models aren't completely wrong, merely erring on the side of caution.
Clouds of ash are hard to spot either on radar or on sat imagery.

Granted it would probably been more scientific to close the airspace based on where the planes started to fall out of the sky but it would probably have pissed off the public even more.

There just isn't any *right* answer to this kind of answer to this kind of russian roulette problem.

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[dcw3]

Yes, it's called the defense budget because calling it "offense" would be politically incorrect, but we both digress from the point you originally raised.

Your original argument was that we don't need FEMA and that the AF and National Guard should have acted. And you've made no rational argument that they could have done that job at the time. I pointed that out, and know this topic (as a former Airman, and 28 yr defense contractor) first hand, and will say it one more time for you. The military is not funded, or trained for it. You argued that they do biological disaster training...yes, everyone gets "NBC" training, which is in no way appropriate for anything like what happened in Katrina.

So again, if you want the military to do these functions, it's going to take more than someone saying "make it so"...much, much more.

Re:How long till the Tea partiers blame Obama?

[VolciMaster]

True, failure of levees caused much of the damage. And how long had the Army Corps of Engineers been wanting to fix/upgrade those, but the local and state governments either a) wouldn't allow it, or b) funding was directed elsewhere?

Affects on Europe

[Celt]

Ireland's airspace as well as Englands, France, Germany, Finland etc all closed at present and has been since before the weekend, lots of people stuck in other countrys unable to get home and are trying any means available to try and get home. US/Canada will really feel it if the same thing happens. ....and people think we're not all connected in the world :)

Re:Affects on Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

..., lots of people stuck in other countrys unable to get home and are trying any means available to try and get home.

Exactly. Heard what John Cleese did?

Re:Affects on Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

Though France has opened their airport, I believe Sweden has as well..

Re:Affects on Europe

[Celt]

Yeah heard that, these people had to buy bikes in order to board a ferry in france
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0418/breaking15.html?via=mr

Re:Affects on Europe

[ddxexex]

Except the US's train system is nowhere as good as Europe's ... so this is going to be worse for the US if it reaches us.

Re:Affects on Europe

[Hijacked Public]

The US train system is excellent if you are coal, or liquid polypropylene, or the like. For humans not so much.

Re:Affects on Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

He even made a film about it (in 1986)!

Re:Affects on Europe

[xtracto]

and people think we're not all connected in the world :)

As a Mexican expat living in Germany, this made me think a bit about those Hollywood metheorite-EOW scenarios.

The thing is, if this comparatively small-scale volcanic eruption is creating all this disruption, I do not want to know what a meteorite impact will do!

So, the first thing we (humans a a whole) do is land all commercial air traffic. Then, I was thinking among the lines of (in the case of the EOW scenario) each country kicking out all of the non-citizens from the country...

Or, people (like me let's say) wanting to get to see to their family/loved ones in their home country...

That will mean a surge of demand for water transport... which anyway would take about 3 months IIRC to get from Europe to USA hoho.

Fortunately (I guess) communication channels won't be affected that much (due mainly to undersea cable) so I could always skype my Mamá!

So far, it has been funny to see the mess that the eruption has provoked. It *really* shows how all the politics/political correctness prevent things from going (some guy was reasonably whining on TV that it took 5 days to make the first agreements!). This shows how much do we still need to progress in global politics/agreements.

Re:Affects on Europe

[ZeroExistenZ]

From the article:

One man, a British Airways gold card member, was riding a children's bicycle.

Now the real question is, did he pay the kid to give away its bike, or mug it?

In Belgium we get daily news about the grounded planes. People not being able to get back have gotten taxies from Poland to Belgium (1000km), are stuck for a week in Asia and consider a 7day-train ride back and all sorts of simular absurdities. It's been days and the people aren't refunded or offered alternative (like hotels to stay until the ashcloud clears up.)

I think people all around the world are getting creative to try to get it done, I thought the papers have started a column to collect these stories.

Re:Affects on Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you forget we all drive cars here?

Re:Affects on Europe

[K. S. Kyosuke]

That's nice! You get a nice, slow trip with some sightseeing and additionally, you do something for your health.

Re:Affects on Europe

[mr_stinky_britches]

You meant "Effects"..way to go

Re:Affects on Europe

[Celt]

Thing is the just had to buy a bike to board the ferry, they weren't allowed on board without a bike.....they then got rid of them once they got to the other side.

One business man bought a childs bike second hand just so he could board....idiotic rules for the ferry company to have.

Re:Affects on Europe

[Wolvenhaven]

I would just like to say your Sig is probably the best thing I've read on slashdot in a while.

Re:Affects on Europe

[northernfrights]

"and are trying any means available to try and get home."

I'm going to need to see a photo of a jet powered donkey attempting take-off, or bust.

Re:Affects on Europe

[Celt]

So in short if you can become some sort of superhero and convert yourself to a liquad or rock like state you can get around the US via training very efficiently?

Good to know :)

Re:Affects on Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

> Ireland's airspace as well as Englands, France, Germany, Finland etc all closed at present

That depends on what you classify as "closed". In the UK, IFR clearance for airways routing is being refused but VFR flight is continuing in lower-level uncontrolled airspace. Flying clubs are having a splendid time cavorting around the empty skies and helicopter charter operators are making a mint.

Some aerodromes, notably Heathrow, have closed to all traffic but that is a choice, not a mandate.

In contrast, the Isle of Man has banned all overflights and this was initially the response of the Netherlands, the latter later softening to allow unpowered glider flights.

Re:Affects on Europe

[Weezul]

You realize the U.S. possesses three of the world's nine known supervolcanos right? In particular, Yellowstone park will eventually cover half the U.S. in three feet of ash and debris. Have a nice day. :)

Re:Affects on Europe

[Celt]

Fully aware, of course if it goes (yellowstone) the USA may not be around to comment on it :)

Re:Affects on Europe

[ceoyoyo]

"which anyway would take about 3 months IIRC to get from Europe to USA hoho"

If you're sailing in a square rigger, maybe. Cruise ships today generally make the trip in about a week.

Re:Affects on Europe

[SonnyDog09]

We're Americans. We drive. We don't take trains. The roads will still work fine.

Re:Affects on Europe

[dkleinsc]

It's gotten significantly better over the last 5-6 years. George W Bush actually did something quite useful for Amtrak, by changing the rules to allow Amtrak to sue CSX, Norfolk Southern, etc when they violated their contracts with Amtrak (which of course they used to do regularly because there was no penalty for doing so). Once that rule changed, most trains began to run on schedule or close to it.

And for those who've never done it, it's a fairly pleasant way to travel. I'd recommend spending the extra on a sleeper room if you're going for 24+ hours, but the traveling part is thoroughly pleasant, basically lounging around, chatting with folks you meet, enjoying the view, stuff like that.

Re:Affects on Europe

[TheLink]

Maybe the USA should start using up all that geothermal energy before it blows.

As long as they figure out a way to use it without causing it to blow up earlier, but instead blow up much later. Better get those calculations and simulations right :).

If it works, even if it ruins the park in the short term, it'll cause less environmental damage in the long term right? So how would the greenies feel about the entire park becoming a whole bunch of power stations? ;).

Re:Affects on Europe

[Kirijini]

The US train system is excellent if you are coal...

Not so much. I know what you mean - coal plants rely on the railroad system for the delivery of coal, and as a natural consequence, the railroad system is tailored for delivering coal. But, nevertheless, the coal plant owners are not happy with the US railroad system, and it is far from "excellent" to them.

Coal plants are completely hostage to whomever owns the railroad that goes up to their plant. For some plants, the last 10 miles or so is owned by a different railroad company than the one that provides most of the shipping, and the owner of that "last mile" has absolutely no competition in delivering coal to that one plant. And naturally, they charge an enormous premium, as compared to plants that receive their coal from other railways or other delivery methods (barge, or even trucking).

The US train system is like any other network infrastructure, including the internet - a robust "last mile" is just as important as a robust "backbone." And competition at each segment is a good thing, but rare because such capital-heavy infrastructure is extremely prone to consolidation, monopolies, and rent-seeking - all of which lead to stagnation, and all of which need to be regulated for the public (and economic!) good. In some ways, this might be one explanation as to why the airline industry is doing better than passenger trains - they rely on a completely different (almost "peer to peer," as in, airport to airport) infrastructure that allows competition; and despite the heavy capital investment required, its much harder to exclusively own part of the network and lock out competition.

This is all based on some readings I did in college on the American energy infrastructure. I don't still have those books, so I don't guarantee the accuracy of everything said here, but, consider this article a citation.

Re:Affects on Europe

[anss123]

Yo USAians. Yellowstone geothermal power plant sounds a lot better than "ground zero". I'm sure you got the tech... Right?

Re:Affects on Europe

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Well, I meant it half-seriously, but the serious part was that it might not actually hurt people to breathe some fresh ocean air instead of that air-conditioned stuff found in airplanes. Of course, the rule is idiotic, but I would keep the bike. :)

Re:Affects on Europe

[Eunuchswear]

Though France has opened their airport, I believe Sweden has as well..

Look, I know some people like to make jokes about France, but it does have more than one airport you know.

Toulouse, Marseilles and Nice are open or partly open as of this morning.

Re:Affects on Europe

[rivaldufus]

It's amazing how frequently coal and other fuel sources like to travel. They must have an excellent benefits package.

Re:Affects on Europe

[bananaquackmoo]

Better, but not by much. Yes the trips are often scenic. Yes its a comfortable ride. Beyond that? Its slower than driving, never on time, and more expensive than it should be. FYI, No, they do NOT run on schedule or close to it as you have indicated, at least not here in CA.

Re:Affects on Europe

[thsths]

> One business man bought a childs bike second hand just so he could board....idiotic rules for the ferry company to have.

Well, that happens if you hire idiots with no qualifications or training, and assume that "process" (read: strict adherence to rules) will sort it out.

Re:Affects on Europe

[dkleinsc]

Amtrak actually keeps stats on whether trains arrive on schedule. For instance, the New York/Boston-Chicago route, which used to be frequently 3-5 hours behind schedule, is now arriving on time about 85% of the time.

Is it perfect? No. But it's a dramatic improvement.

Re:Affects on Europe

[PitaBred]

Breathing in volcanic ash is good for you now?

Re:Affects on Europe

[Archangel Michael]

From Nor Cal to So Cal by train takes somewhere between 20-24 hours (Sacramento to Grand Central LA). Most of that is by BUS. It costs more than a ticket on Southwest Airlines from the nearest Airport.

The last mile is not the problem. The problem is the backbone is slow, has too many slow points, stops every 20 miles to pick up new people.

So, why would anyone take a train(unless they have a fear of flying)?

To make the train make sense, they'd have to start letting people drive their cars onto the train, and make longer than 100 mile segments so the train can actually go 120-150 MPH for distance.

I would love to be able to drive my car to the Train Depot, drive it onto the train, sit and relax for an hour or two, and get 200 miles away. In fact, I would augment or replace long stretches of empty highway with Trains that hauled cars.

Talk about efficiency!

Re:Affects on Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

3-5 hours? I am already annoyed when my train is five minutes late.

Re:Affects on Europe

[indi0144]

>> instead of that air-conditioned stuff found in airplanes

Yeah! I always ask for a seat with electric windows so I can take my head out, You wouldn't believe the sights! Pressurized planes are overrated IMO.

Re:Affects on Europe

[OakDragon]

Nonsense! Learn some hobo markings, grab a bindle, and hop on board!

Re:Affects on Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

...Affects...

You mean Effects. Just FYI.

Re:Affects on Europe

[DriedClexler]

Hm, maybe they should have a site for updates on that...

Re:Affects on Europe

[CptNerd]

Sounds like a business opportunity opened up. Bike leasing for would-be ferry riders, working on both sides.

Re:Affects on Europe

[CptNerd]

Well, they do have seniority...

Re:Affects on Europe

[KDR_11k]

I'm not sure you'd want to stay inside the car for that duration, AFAIK car trains usually have the people get into passenger train cars during the journey. Much more comfortable anyway and you don't have to shit out the window if nature calls.

Re:Affects on Europe

[KDR_11k]

Then, I was thinking among the lines of (in the case of the EOW scenario) each country kicking out all of the non-citizens from the country...

What? Why? And even more, how if air traffic is down?

Re:Affects on Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

That article reeks of BS to me. "Guy has to buy cyclist's ticket for ferry after no pedestrian tickets are left", sure, I'll buy that. But "guy cannot buy cyclist's ticket until he brings an actual bicycle and rides it up the ramp"? That makes no sense.

Given that chances are that this "story" is based entirely on the claims of the guy in question, I'll remain skeptical.

Re:Affects on Europe

[Nyder]

Ireland's airspace as well as Englands, France, Germany, Finland etc all closed at present and has been since before the weekend, lots of people stuck in other countrys unable to get home and are trying any means available to try and get home. US/Canada will really feel it if the same thing happens. ....and people think we're not all connected in the world :)

yes, because volcanos never erupt in the USA

Re:Affects on Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL. Well, it's not always that simple. I watched a new report about the Belgrade airport being closed. A passenger said he had to ride
50h by train to Moscow. How's that for healthy?

I ust wish this happened in ...

[AnonymousClown]

the dogs days of Summer. It would have helped my A/C bill.

On another note: this must be giving the climatologists some awesome data!

Re:I ust wish this happened in ...

[KDR_11k]

It doesn't cause much cooling, the particles don't block light much but they're solid and apparently large enough to damage planes passing through.

That just sucks ash... eh?

[MeNotU]

That just sucks ash... eh?

Re:That just sucks ash... eh?

[value_added]

What would suck more is if it arrives on Wednesday. We'd have to call it ... wait for it ... Ash Wednesday!

There's probably a Mount St. Helens Thursday joke lurking in there too.

Re:That just sucks ash... eh?

[JustOK]

going to put something in her ash-hole?

Re:That just sucks ash... eh?

[Cro Magnon]

It would be better if it DID suck ash. Unfortunately, it blows!

Re:That just sucks ash... eh?

[sharkey]

Hail to the King, baby!

SIGH

[vikingpower]

Finally. All Canucks & Americans who laughed at us Europeans now get to experience how nice it is: no hassle, quiet skies, no contrails, stay-at-home and work -- or be stranded in interesting cities at your bosses' expenses !

Re:SIGH

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally. All Canucks & Americans who laughed at us Europeans now get to experience how nice it is: no hassle, quiet skies, no contrails, stay-at-home and work -- or be stranded in interesting cities at your bosses' expenses !

Tis no laughing matter on this side of the Atlantic, but I see your point otherwise :-)

Re:SIGH

[Ogive17]

No laughing here, just a bunch of "that really sucks" type comments. We have been seeing a number of stories about Americans stuck in Europe and how the locals have been extremely welcoming and helping while they hang out, in limbo.

I'm in the midwest, though. We're use to dust clouds from the farmers prepping their fields. My car stays clean for about 2 hours after I wash it before it has a thin lair of dust covering it. I was smart this time and bought a dust colored vehicle.

Re:SIGH

[sizzzzlerz]

I think we here in the US have had that experience not too long ago. Not to be overly grim here, but the week after 9/11, there were no planes flying in the skies above the US. Not hearing the planes landing and taking off at a near-by major airport nor seeing them high in the sky flying into other airports in the region was pretty odd.

Re:SIGH

[Culture20]

Finally. All Canucks & Americans who laughed at us Europeans now get to experience how nice it is: no hassle, quiet skies, no contrails, stay-at-home and work -- or be stranded in interesting cities at your bosses' expenses !

We remember that all too well from nine and a half years ago. - 2001/09/11

Re:SIGH

[JamesP]

Or maybe they will do their homework and instead of having a knee-jerk reaction actually measure the ash density and determine if it's dangerous or not

I'm guessing the dangerous area is about 1/10 of what the British VAAG is saying

Re:SIGH

[Tweezer]

All aircraft engine manufacturers call for zero ash. I'm guessing that they figured that was the easiest thing to do as opposed to doing actual testing. Since it's never been tested properly, I wouldn't blame the governments for following the written specifications. I also doubt that any engine company is going to be willing to take on the lilability of publishing updated specifications allowing some ash.

Re:SIGH

[mcgrew]

I don't think anybody's laughing, except the slashdot moderators.

Re:SIGH

[JamesP]

What's interesting is that airliners face similar conditions in the Middle East, that is, very fine SiO2 particles. And they go there every day and cope with it.

And the requirement for zero ash is fine, what's not fine is putting a blanket over all Europe saying 'there may be ash there'

Re:SIGH

[Pharmboy]

What is so odd to me is that many Europeans thought that Americans were laughing at them because the volcano interupted their air travel. I don't know anyone who thought that was funny at all. Do Europeans really think that we are that petty?

Re:SIGH

[varcher]

determine if it's dangerous or not

Actually, the danger isn't that planes will fall out of the sky or somesuch because they've encountered some ash. The problem comes from the glass/ash mixture having a rather big effect on engines and airframes' wear-and-tear. Flying thru the ash plume probably causes 10 or more times the normal wear on engines. However, the maintenance schedules are rather inflexible on planes.

Net result? The flights won't be dangerous now. They'll be in a couple weeks/months, when you have 90% of your airplane fleet that has engine problems early, the civil aviation inspectors can't inspect them all, and the average european company becomes no more reliable than the lowliest north-african charter plane company.

Sure, they could replace all those engines earlier. If they can find some outside of the counterfeit market at reasonable prices, that is.

(short: Resuming flights before we can figure out the length of the emergency is short-term good, long-term bad)

Re:SIGH

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a vacation scheduled 9/13, that is, two days after 9/11.

I spent the week in Northern Michigan with no planes flying overhead, beautiful skies both day and night, and we had no television service.

9/11 was a tragedy, of course, but I'm afraid I still enjoyed my vacation of clear, clean air.

Re:SIGH

[captainpanic]

What is so odd to me is that many Europeans thought that Americans were laughing at them because the volcano interupted their air travel. I don't know anyone who thought that was funny at all. Do Europeans really think that we are that petty?

Yes.

Because we certainly would make jokes if it happened to you first.

Re:SIGH

[knarf]

What made you think that we here in the Olde Worlde thought you would be laughing about our ashy situation? I have not heard anything even remotely resembling such an accusation. Nothing in the media, nothing from 'real people', zilch, nada, niente, nichts...

Re:SIGH

[beerbear]

Do Europeans really think that we are that petty?

Everyone over here in Germany was, or knows someone who was, at an US high-school for a semester or year. There's ample of anecdotes err evidence of petty US Americans. Yes, I'm talking to you, Mike. We're not even yet.

Re:SIGH

[Anonymous Coward]

no, only petty Europeans do :) we arn't all like that, just like you're not all like some picture you.

Re:SIGH

[Bearhouse]

Do Europeans really think that we are that petty?

No. On the other hand, don't ask what we think about your political system...

Re:SIGH

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you guys have the European Union that has a president that the people doesn't even elect... much much better

Re:SIGH

[Pharmboy]

Last time I went to Europe, it was a meeting with business owners all over (Franch, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, etc.) and they were a bit shocked that my friend and I weren't the stereotypes they expected. We were conservatives (my friend, Republican, me, more Libertarian) but failed to meet the expectation of being war mongering, European hating, Imperialistic thinking Americans that television portrays. (by some, others knew better) What shocked them is that we can disagree, without being disagreeable, and had actual logical reasons for our opinions. That, and the fact that we actually drink coffee and eat in our cars while driving down the highway.

Re:SIGH

[houghi]

I have mod points. Where is the 'Rhetorical' option?

Re:SIGH

[Pharmboy]

There is nothing wrong with our political system, the problem is the way it is being used/abused, and how we have drifted away from the original intent of the Constitution and have given too much power to too few people. As the old joke goes, "Other countries should use our Constitution, we aren't using it anyway."

Re:SIGH

[Pharmboy]

I have mod points. Where is the 'Rhetorical' option?

I do too, but answered the GP instead. BTW, is Rhetorical a +1 or -1?

Re:SIGH

[phayes]

The airlines are waking up to the fact that not flying at all is more expensive in the long run than avoiding the heaviest concentrations of ash and performing preventive maintenance more often. The heads of KLM, Air France, Lufthansa have been calling on the technocrats who have completely shut down activity in Europe to define at what concentration of ash particles they will allow flights to reopen. Dominique Bussereau, the French transport minister has been catching increasing flack for supporting the shut down of all flights (including turboprops which do not fly at the altitudes the ash is) on precautionary measures. He recently stated "You can't be too careful". Of course, were that really to be the case, he wouldn't be asking his police escort to speed through Paris when he is late for a meeting...

Re:SIGH

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, this thread starting with:

Finally. All Canucks & Americans who laughed at us Europeans now get to experience how nice it is: no hassle, quiet skies, no contrails, stay-at-home and work -- or be stranded in interesting cities at your bosses' expenses !

Maybe that's related, somehow?

Re:SIGH

[CAIMLAS]

Well, considering the Old Worlders appear to think that way about their neighbors and the US, it's hardly surprising that they'd assume we'd be doing the same.

Re:SIGH

[Anonymous Coward]

What is so odd to me is that many Europeans thought that Americans were laughing at them because the volcano interupted their air travel. I don't know anyone who thought that was funny at all. Do Europeans really think that we are that petty?

What made you think that? We ( "Old Europe" at least) are pretty full of anti-American resentiments, many of them were worked very hard for (by yourself) to be established. Yet, no one in his right mind believes that you would mock the misery of someone else. Why should you do that? There is so much more we have in common, and those who look past the common hysteria see that. Most prejudices here towards the United States are of the type that one would speaks of a crazy relative. Not really nasty, but rather annoyed or exasperated, with a certain sympathy. People did not forget WWII and the Cold War. Many people here are very ready to love your country, it just had been made it very very hard for them during the last few years.

Accidently, I, too, don't know anyone who thinks what is assumed by you that we did.

Re:SIGH

[eth1]

I don't have a citation, but I read something last week that said that flying through an ash cloud could render the cockpit windows nearly opaque. Doesn't matter whether the engines make it or not, if the pilots can't see. The same article also mentioned that there was a previous instance where an overseas 747 flight lost all four engines (fortunately, they successfully restarted 3 of them) flying through an ash cloud.

I've seen that documentary of the design/building of the Boeing 777, and they DID dump a bunch of sand through the engine. But it can't be good for it, and why would you knowingly subject a multi-million dollar piece of equipment to that sort of abuse except in an emergency?

Re:SIGH

[indeciso]

There is nothing wrong with our political system, the problem is the way it is being used/abused

If a political system can be *that* abused, then there's definitely something wrong with it.

Re:SIGH

[Pharmboy]

Any system can be abused or hacked. Even Linux.

Re:SIGH

[Pharmboy]

You actually make a very good point, and my experiences are what you say: that Europeans don't hate us, they just think we are a bit wacked, odd or crazy. Personally, I think this is a lack of understanding on both sides of the pond. One example is *some* Europeans think it is wasteful that most American homes have air conditioning, and that we use too much electricity. I live in North Carolina, which is on the east coast, mid-Atlantic area. Not the hottest area, not the coldest. It gets 32C to 37C here all summer long, and this past winter we stayed below 0C most of the time. We would have people dropping like flies if we didn't have AC, or would have froze to death if not for central heating. It doesn't get that hot regularly in the vast majority of Europe, so it is difficult for someone from Belgium or Germany to relate to this, as our temperature swings are quite large. Most of the US is like this.

So yes, we Americans do use lots of petrol and electricity, but so do the Europeans that move here, as they quickly find they have little choice.

Re:SIGH

[Kirijini]

Last time I went to Europe... they were a bit shocked that my friend and I weren't the stereotypes they expected. We were conservatives (my friend, Republican, me, more Libertarian) but failed to meet the expectation of being war mongering, European hating, Imperialistic thinking Americans that television portrays. ...What shocked them is that we can disagree, without being disagreeable, and had actual logical reasons for our opinions.

Americans are good people, especially face to face. It's our politicians (Palin, etc.) and media stars (Beck, etc.) who are always on TV and always make news by being unreasonable that give Americans the reputation for being "war mongering, European hating, Imperialistic thinking."

We have a deservedly bad reputation for choosing our leaders. I think Obama's okay (and so does Europe!), but Reid, Pelosi, Hoyer, Boehner, McConnell, McCain, Palin, Huckabee, Romney, Lieberman, Kerry, and most other national politicians or politician-wannabes are terrible leaders and bad for our country and bad for our reputation.

What are Europeans supposed to infer when they read or hear about our politicians?

Re:SIGH

[Anonymous Coward]

And its a long way from zero Ash! I read yesterday that the Norwegian Air Force sent up two F18 Hornets to fly into the ash on Saturday as a test to see how safe it would be (not through heavy ash, just altitudes where they expected it to be lighter). After landing the engines were inspected and found to have considerable pitting from the 1.5 hour flight (and they reported the results to the Norwegian Civil Air Authority). It concurs with what the British pilot said about having to fly through heavy ash over Indonesia in the 1970's, when all 4 engines quit, and they only managed to get one restarted after 14 minutes, and had to land on instruments because the windshield was so pitted you couldn't see through it, the lens' on the landing lights were so pitted they were ineffective, and that the 1.5 hours they flew through the ash, it managed to take all the paint off the aircraft and make the control surfaces difficult to move, and the leading edges of the wings were 'getting thin'. Somehow they didn't die.

Re:SIGH

[SlayerDave]

Americans might not have been laughing, but Icelanders sure as shit were!

Re:SIGH

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of the airlines are whining about not being able to fly. Some have simply stated that all flights are cancelled for several days, in advance of the ATC statements (which are only running about 20 hours in front of the actual time right now). One airline in particular - and you'll be surprised which one - has covered all inlets and outlets including the engines on every single grounded plane or parked them under cover where possible, just in case.

Which one? Ryanair.

Yes, I was surprised too.

Re:SIGH

[rufey]

Flying through dense enough ash clouds can cause significant problems. British Airways flight 9 from London to New Zealand is just one example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9

And it can affect more than just the engines. In the above cited incident, the windscreen was sandblasted to the point that it was nearly impossible to see out through it.

Re:SIGH

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, they could replace all those engines earlier. If they can find some outside of the counterfeit market at reasonable prices, that is.

Wait.....

Counterfeit jet engines?

Re:SIGH

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong with that? People making decisions (i.e. parliament) should be elected by the people, but I see no reason why someone like the president of the European Union should.

That the Americans need to elect their president* is merely a consequence of the U.S. Constitution and political customs putting way to much power into one person that also has to be most of the government, the parliament and head of state at the same time.

*well, they don't in fact, they only elect people that choose a president for them but historically, that has worked reasonably well

Re:SIGH

[drsquare]

First past the post is a pretty crappy system.

Re:SIGH

[phayes]

Given how Ryanair functions they probably don't care as much as one of the majors. Ryanair is not paying for stranded passengers. Ryanair has relatively little cargo. Ryanair pays it's employees much less when they are not flying. The percentage of Ryanair's bottom line that goes to maintenance it probably more than that of the majors too -- just because their personnel & other "fixed" costs are lower.

That doesn't change the fact that Ryanair covering all their engines is a tad beyond ridiculous. Volcanic ash is only a danger to active reactors. Somebody probably also feels safer when wearing 4 or 5 rubbers when visiting a whorehouse 'cause ya never know...

Re:SIGH

[majortomse]

We're busy reading about Silvio Berlusconis latest buy on the prostitution market.

Re:SIGH

[Smauler]

I'm English, but I grew up in Oman, so I do know hot (it has hit 50C in the shade there). Despite that, none of the cars over there had air-con. You just didn't _ever_ park in the sun, and drank lots. Most of the houses did have air-con though, and you learned to live with it - you never went out in mid summer :P.

This past winter the UK has been frozen for weeks at a time, as well as having quite a lot of snowfall... and the UK is one of the warmer places in Europe. I live relatively near London, and all standing water was frozen solid for over a month this year. I think it hit about -15C here, it got colder further north. The year before last it hit 35C in London in _May_ too (but that was unusual).

All that being said, England is between 5 and 20C about 90% of the time, so I do understand your point. However, we do know what hot is, and we know what cold is... we just don't see either that regularly. One thing about the UK is that night and day don't show much of a temperature difference usually...

Another thing about the UK that people don't realise - where my parents live gets about 12 inches of rain annually, ie 1 inch of rain a month... that is super unusual for the UK though :P.

Re:SIGH

[KDR_11k]

Oh, right, prostitution is illegal in the US, isn't it?

Re:SIGH

[majortomse]

Does it really matter if it is illegal or not? The issue is the same moral wise.

Re:SIGH

[riverat1]

I suspect the composition of the ash varies from volcano to volcano so it might be difficult to really test for ash effects in a turbine engine.

Re:SIGH

[riverat1]

Volcanic ash and SiO2 (sand) particles are quite different things.

Re:SIGH

[Dilaudid]

I'm guessing that they figured that was the easiest thing to do as opposed to doing actual testing.

- I'd say "most sensible" rather than "easiest" - today's passengers tend to go for low cost airlines. Having engines tested for volcanic ash and every comparable risk would doubtless increase their cost, and they would no longer be manufacturing engines. They probably made the right choice - we have a great opportunity to test engines in ash conditions now. Most European airlines are doing it now.

I wouldn't blame the governments for following the written specifications

- if they were sysadmins and this was a systems outage which had been going on for 5 days, I think they would be showing a little more imagination than "it says in the manual it's not safe to turn it on". This of course isn't a systems outage, it's keeping people away from their families and lives.

liability

- the magic word. Who is willing to take responsibility for this? No-one? Thanks Lawyers!

Re:SIGH

[Anonymous Coward]

Do Europeans really think that we are that petty?

Dear Americans,
Yes.

Yours sincerely,
The Europeans.

Spellcheck fail

[Culture20]

It's Eyjafjallajökull. I barely knew which volcano you were talking about.

Re:Spellcheck fail

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Eyjafjallajökull. I barely knew which volcano you were talking about.

Eyjafjallajokull
Eyjafjallajökull

I barely consider the diff to be 1 letter. It actually is just two little cute dots. Stop trollin'.

And back on topic, the Brit. Navy is actually sending two warships over to the US to pick up people. I think that's pretty impressive.

Re:Spellcheck fail

[WrongSizeGlass]

And back on topic, the Brit. Navy is actually sending two warships over to the US to pick up people. I think that's pretty impressive.

That's what you say now. Just wait until you hear about the "passengers" having to swab the poop deck and service the engines. Worst.cruise.ever!

Re:Spellcheck fail

[Pharmboy]

And back on topic, the Brit. Navy is actually sending two warships over to the US to pick up people. I think that's pretty impressive.

After all the news about the Tea Party rallies, I'm pretty nervous about the Brits sending over warships...

Re:Spellcheck fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn, now I have to change my email password

Re:Spellcheck fail

[stjobe]

And back on topic, the Brit. Navy is actually sending two warships over to the US to pick up people. I think that's pretty impressive.

"Pick up people" - yeah, right. Prepare boarding parties! Man the cannons!

Re:Spellcheck fail

[berashith]

nice sig, but , 8)Fixed that for you ... there, fixed that for you

Re:Spellcheck fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wait until you hear about the "passengers" having to swab the poop deck and service the engines.

They have a whole deck for that?!?!?

Re:Spellcheck fail

[jdoverholt]

I have no problem with the British "taking care" of the tea baggers for us.

Re:Spellcheck fail

[Yvan256]

Why? Afraid you won't have enough tea?

Come to think of it, you better have enough or that could start a war!

Re:Spellcheck fail

[tophermeyer]

Because that worked so well last time.

Re:Spellcheck fail

[PincushionMan]

Didn't the War of 1812 start because British captains were 'impressing' American citizens?

Re:Spellcheck fail

[Fnkmaster]

Even worse: this is how it's pronounced. Wowsers!

Re:Spellcheck fail

[Anonymous Coward]

The volcano is actually Eyjafjöll. The glacier covering it is Eyjafjallajökull.

Re:Spellcheck fail

[Tablizer]

Gesundheit.

Re:Spellcheck fail

[tmosley]

Like big government? Like infinite executive power? Wait until the other party gets into office and starts doing things you don't like, and you find yourself powerless to stop them because you signed away all your rights while you were in the majority.

Tyranny of the majority is in full effect. Enjoy your dystopian future. I'm moving to China, the land of opportunity!

Re:Spellcheck fail

[D H NG]

The last time they sent over warships to "pick up people", the US was so pissed off we went to war with them.

Re:Spellcheck fail

[cloudkiller]

I imagine something like this transpired way back when the good people of Iceland were naming that volcano.

"What shall we call volcano number 7 sir?"
"What is wrong with volcano number 7?"
"You felt it needed a better name."
"Right, right. Of course. Double-o-seven has a nice ring to it."
"It does sir. Would that be two of the letter 'o' or two zeros?"
"There is a difference?"
"There is."
"Can we do away with that?"
"I think that may be outside the scope of this problem, sir."
"Fine, fine. What about... Eyjafjallajökull!"
"Is that a name sir?"
"No that was a sneeze."

The rest was just a big misunderstanding.

Re:Spellcheck fail

[Anonymous Coward]

And then the US lost that war.

No surprise

[blai]

Looks far on a map. Actually pretty close.

Ahh, at last

[Anonymous Coward]

it's their turn.

bankers take on the grounded flights

[Xemu]

This was overheard in London:

The English Banker to the Icelandic representative for Kaupthing Bank:

We said we wanted CASH... not ash!

Re:bankers take on the grounded flights

[flex941]

Longer version:

--

Dear Iceland,

We said "send CASH".

Yours sincerely,
United Kingdom

--

Dear United Kingdom,

You should have stopped to consider that there is no letter "C" in the
Icelandic alphabet before issuing your demand.

With best,
Iceland

--

Re:bankers take on the grounded flights

[codeButcher]

The other part of the joke is that there is no C in the Icelandic alphabet.

Re:bankers take on the grounded flights

[Wolvenhaven]

The economy of Iceland's last request was to have its ashes spread across Europe.

Re:bankers take on the grounded flights

[tpheiska]

Dear Iceland,

We said "send HASH".

Yours sincerely,
The Netherlands

Re:bankers take on the grounded flights

[L4t3r4lu5]

Yet it seems there is on their keyboard

Re:bankers take on the grounded flights

[jamesh]

No C? What a load of silly bunts.

Re:bankers take on the grounded flights

[magnus.ahlberg]

However, it does contain the letter "Æ". Which coincidentally is called "Ash" in English.

Re:bankers take on the grounded flights

[mrsquid0]

It is a completely understandable mistake. The Icelandic alphabet does not have the letter c.

Re:bankers take on the grounded flights

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, they too have to write Computer now and then, when talking to foreigners. However it's not used in their language.

Re:bankers take on the grounded flights

[Sylver Dragon]

Dear UK, You should trust our files implicitly, but here's the hash anyway:
76D08CAB8B28C5F447D47519454F0D94

Yours sincerely,
The Netherlands

Re:bankers take on the grounded flights

[JustOK]

but, then, without the C, it's just Ieland and Ielandi

Re:bankers take on the grounded flights

[Yvan256]

Then how do they spell Icelandic? /duck

Re:bankers take on the grounded flights

[Anonymous Coward]

Iceland is sending back all the cash they burned.
How much ash do you get from burning 20 billion Euros?

Re:bankers take on the grounded flights

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Sylver Dragon,

our lawyers inform us that you have posted the CSS decoding key (76D08CAB8B28C5F447D47519454F0D94) on a public website.

You will receive an invoice for our lawyers fees as well as cease-and cease-and-desist letter followed by a huge lawsuit wether or not you comply with our demands.

Sincerely,
The MPAA.

Re:bankers take on the grounded flights

[retardpicnic]

How can there be no c in the Icelandic alphabet? Wouldn't they be call ieland then?

Re:bankers take on the grounded flights

[M8e]

Island /önd

Re:bankers take on the grounded flights

[inio]

jdb/vd312416.jdb?

Re:bankers take on the grounded flights

[saforrest]

From the very link you provided:

The letters C (sé, [sj]), Q (kú, [ku]) and W (tvöfalt vaff, [tvoefalt vaf]) are only used in Icelandic in words of foreign origin and some proper names that are also of foreign origin.

Re:bankers take on the grounded flights

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry Netherlands, a hash can't start with a number, and you forgot the leading '%'. Also, consider coming up with a simpler naming system.

Re:bankers take on the grounded flights

[Anonymous Coward]

here's the hash anyway: 76D08CAB8B28C5F447D47519454F0D94

I didn't know symantec was located in the Netherlands.

Re:bankers take on the grounded flights

[arisvega]

This joke is old. Awesome, but 4 days old. Actually, it was posted on the thread where I posted "it may happen to you too", and I mention that the cloud may soon hit north America. I also included nice satellite pic links. But no, no points for me. Although I DO use linux, you insensitive clods. Now I'll start using car analogies. You understand that In Soviet Russia this would NEVER happen. Let me fix that for me: I'll start acting like the comedian.

The ash is getting thicker

[Anonymous Coward]

And Leon's getting laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarger!

Re:The ash is getting thicker

[Convector]

Never a mod point when you need one...

Re:The ash is getting thicker

[Moheeheeko]

Looks like i picked a bad day to quit Amphetamines

A word of advice

[lammy]

If this situation unfolds for Canada / North America as it has done for Europe, they may wish to revise their means of communicating cancellations to passengers. The 'marker pen on a whiteboard' technique may be suitable for a handful of flights at a small regional airport but doesn't scale very well once an entire continent's airspace has been closed. Also, the hand-drawn "Sorry" with a sad face next to each flight number will start to take on a somewhat patronising tone.

Re:A word of advice

[yotto]

This is Canada. The "Sorry" and the frowny face are actually dictated by law.

Re:A word of advice

[JamesP]

And don't forget the 'Desolé' since everything has to be in french. I assume they should draw a frowny face with a french hat and a cigarette as well...

Re:A word of advice

[epiphani]

Also, the hand-drawn "Sorry" with a sad face next to each flight number will start to take on a somewhat patronising tone.

Patronizing? Really? I can't see how that would be patronizing at all. But then again, I'm a Canadian, and I'd just find that being apologetic in a friendly tone.

Re:A word of advice

[Yvan256]

The worst part of it is the required use of the Comic Sans font.

Re:A word of advice

[Anonymous Coward]

And don't forget the 'Desolé' since everything has to be in french. I assume they should draw a frowny face with a french hat and a cigarette as well...

Q:-(_...

Re:A word of advice

[Yvan256]

What do you mean by "being apologetic in a friendly tone"? Is there any other way?

Signed, another Canadian.

Re:A word of advice

[Twiceblessedman]

If this situation unfolds for Canada / North America as it has done for Europe, they may wish to revise their means of communicating cancellations to passengers. The 'marker pen on a whiteboard' technique may be suitable for a handful of flights at a small regional airport but doesn't scale very well once an entire continent's airspace has been closed. Also, the hand-drawn "Sorry" with a sad face next to each flight number will start to take on a somewhat patronising tone.

I think you meant Canada / United States as Canada is part of North America.

Re:A word of advice

[Anonymous Coward]

well sorryyyy, fucker.

Re:A word of advice

[lammy]

You've made a false assumption regarding what I meant by "/". Let me expand it correctly for you: "If this situation unfolds for Canada, or even North America as a whole, as it has done for Europe...." Also, there are of course more than two countries which make up North America.

Re:A word of advice

[Anonymous Coward]

(Posting anonymously to maintain moderation).

I don't know what airports you've been going to. Every airport in the US I have ever been to has an electronic flight status board and many airlines will text message and/or call passengers when the status of their flight changes.

Re:A word of advice

[Anonymous Coward]

Come down here for a weekend, and we'll teach you all you need to know about "being apologetic in a passive-aggressive tone".

Signed, a midwest United States citizen

BBC fluoride warning

[Anonymous Coward]

"The animals are at risk of fluoride poisoning if they inhale or ingest the ash, leading to internal bleeding, long-term bone damage and teeth loss."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8629241.stm

Re:BBC fluoride warning

[guruevi]

I thought fluoride was good for the teeth ;-)

(Don't look up the fluoride conspiracy theories)

I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[RobotRunAmok]

How 'bout you?

Bet you're feeling real good about driving that Prius designed to be oh-so-gentle on Mother Gaia, ain'tcha?

Meanwhile, the belch from one unpronounceable volcano wipes out the cumulative effort from all of mankind over the past hundred years to purify the water and soil, and dwarfs all of our species' feeble, amateurish efforts to pollute them in the first place.

Gimme a rainforest, a chainsaw, and a case of Red Bull. It's Payback Time!

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[Marcika]

How 'bout you?

Bet you're feeling real good about driving that Prius designed to be oh-so-gentle on Mother Gaia, ain'tcha?

Meanwhile, the belch from one unpronounceable volcano wipes out the cumulative effort from all of mankind over the past hundred years to purify the water and soil, and dwarfs all of our species' feeble, amateurish efforts to pollute them in the first place.

Gimme a rainforest, a chainsaw, and a case of Red Bull. It's Payback Time!

Bollocks. You overestimate the volcano. The cancelled planes would have belched out 14 times more CO2 and SO2 than one pesky little volcano. Nature? Feeble, I say, bah!

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[Anonymous Coward]

I say we blow up the volcanos! That'll show her!

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[Pharmboy]

Even the comments for that link indicate that others think it is bogus, as it doesn't account for methane (a MAJOR greenhouse gas that volcanos emit) and other gases, and it has already been corrected many times. While interesting, you would have to be insane to use that data for anything important, like all Slashdot links.

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[TheRaven64]

The planes would probably have created a lot less particulate ash, however.

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[mcgrew]

Meanwhile, the belch from one unpronounceable volcano wipes out the cumulative effort from all of mankind over the past hundred years to purify the water and soil

In the first place, it was around 1970 before anybody seemed to care about the environment. Perhaps other countries started to care before then, but not long before then. Nixon signed the first US environmental legislation in 1970, forty years ago. The previous 150 years saw mankind spew more pollution than had been spewed in the previous history of man.

Second, the volcano is spewing far less pollutants than the world's cars do every day, except the ash. And it may help alleviate global warming somewhat by reflecting sunlight back into space. As to the ash, men destroyed the ecosystem in Oklahoma and other parts of the plains which resulted in the dist bowl in the 1930s, which rained far more dirt than the Iceland volcano; it spread as far as Europe. It was worse, since it was fertile topsoil that blew away, much or most of it winding up in the Atlantic ocean.

So before you drive your Hummer to the rainforest to cut down trees just for evil spite, you might want to find somewhere besides Fox News to educate yourself.

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[Anonymous Coward]

Bogus or not, the point is moot as the planes still have to fly anyway. Maybe they can save a couple trips by filling the planes up more due to the congestion, but then that too will be offset by the additional fuel spent on the fraction of people who found alternate means of transport.

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[Peter Mork]

I was reading a recent JAMA in the doctor's waiting room today. It included a copy of an article published in JAMA 100 years ago. The article pertained to the health impacts of water pollution, particularly from industrial dumping. So, scientists cared about the environment, probably long before anybody else.

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[Anonymous Coward]

Do not taunt Happy Fun Nature.

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[Yvanhoe]

Mother Nature is a bitch. That's not out of love that we want to protect her. It is out of mutual necessity. Cause you know, we don't have anything more efficient than plants to convert volcano breath into something breathable.

Yeah, Disney's angelism is despicable, but we have yet to outmatch nature in its efficiency at making our love livable. Once we match that, hey, I'll have this chainsaw trip with you.

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[MasterMnd]

It does give a better picture of scale though. Even if with the methane it was a wash (IE: the volcano output the same amount of greenhouse gas as the planes would have), then since volcanoes are fairly infrequent events, AND the airplanes in Europe is only a fraction of our total greenhouse gas production, this clearly demonstrates that we are outputting quite a huge amount of greenhouse gases. Not, as many people have claimed, a tiny amount compared to what nature produces itself.

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[Pharmboy]

Methane is over 20x as effective as a greenhouse gas as CO2, and airplanes don't emit it, and those people still had to get from point A to point B, likely using a method that created MORE CO2 per person, so the comparison is propeganda used to hug a tree, not to provide any real information.

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[PeterBrett]

those people still had to get from point A to point B, likely using a method that created MORE CO2 per person

Likely not. The majority of people will have had to move to buses, trains or ships for their transport, which all pump out less CO2 per passenger mile than commercial aircraft do.

If they had all individually jumped into cars to drive the distance, then yes, your criticism would probably be fair.

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[inf4mia]

What's with all the information linking volcanoes to global warming? Eruptions (esp. large ones) cool the earth due to all the sulfur dioxide they release into the atmosphere. Of course that also has a nasty side effect (i.e. destroying ozone), so it's not all peaches and cream.

Doesn't anyone remember Mt. Pinatubo and its impact on global temperatures? Here's part of the Wikipedia entry:

"It injected large amounts of aerosols into the stratosphere—more than any eruption since that of Krakatoa in 1883. Over the following months, the aerosols formed a global layer of sulfuric acid haze. Global temperatures dropped by about 0.5 C (0.9 F), and ozone depletion temporarily increased substantially.[6]"

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[Pharmboy]

Perhaps. Being an Amercian, my American-centric perspective would have thought most people would have rented cars, which is what the majority of people would do in the US, due to a lack of availability of public transportation, and the overall aversion to using what little we do have.

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[noidentity]

Meanwhile, the belch from one unpronounceable volcano wipes out the cumulative effort from all of mankind over the past hundred years to purify the water and soil, and dwarfs all of our species' feeble, amateurish efforts to pollute them in the first place.

And once the atmosphere gets darkenes, we'll have global cooling, far better than all our efforts so far. Then we'll wish for some heat.

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[hldn]

the truth comes out! airplanes killed the dinosaurs!

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[eth1]

...which resulted in the dist bowl in the 1930s...

Dist Bowl? Is that what happens to a hard drive when you install too many versions of Linux?

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[mpe]

The cancelled planes would have belched out 14 times more CO2 and SO2 than one pesky little volcano. Nature? Feeble, I say, bah!

No doubt the lack of aviation has resulted in extra useage of other vehicles which use fossil fuels. You'd also need to compare the effects of the volcanic cloud compared with contrails created by planes.

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[mcgrew]

So, scientists cared about the environment, probably long before anybody else

Well, not "scientists" but physicians, who were always concerned with cholera and other diseases. Of course there are always people converned about the environment; indiginous Americans wanted to live in harmony with nature. There was a fellow in the 1970s who warned about a pollution problem 100 years into the future -- "by 1970 we'll be knee deep in horse shit."

But it was 1970 before anything was actually done about the environment, when the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act were passed.

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[mcgrew]

No, that's the big bolw of CDs on my desk with all the Linux distros I've tried out. Ubantu is next. BTW, how can I get Mandriva on a netbook that has no CD drive?

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[Spoke]

While methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas, it remains in the atmosphere for a MUCH smaller period of time, so it's effects are only a significant issue if it's emissions are on-going.

Never mind the fact that volcanic eruptions tend to cool the Earth due to particulate and aerosol emissions, anyway.

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[Anonymous Coward]

... and other gases....

H2SO4 is really pleasant to breathe, and good for aircraft too!

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[Smauler]

BTW - Volcanic winters aren't generally caused by any clever chemical reactions - they're mainly caused by the fact that there's a lot of crap in the atmosphere, therefore less sunlight hits the earth. The Sulphuric acid haze (which was only part of the effect) was only effective in cooling because it blocked sunlight.

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[Captain Spam]

Dist Bowl? Is that what happens to a hard drive when you install too many versions of Linux?

It's the final game of the DFL season, played by the champions of the ADC (APT Distro Conference) and the RDC (RPM Distro Conference). Last year's Debian versus Fedora Core game was great, what with the upset at the end when rc.local kicked an extra packet for the win.

Re:I'm Tired of Living in Harmony with Nature

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bollocks. You overestimate the volcano. The cancelled planes would have belched out 14 times more CO2 and SO2 than one pesky little volcano. Nature? Feeble, I say, bah!"

That link is highly unreliable. They've already had to correct it several times and yet they are still low balling. They started at what 14Ktons/day now they're at 150Ktons/day* (With the * saying 150K-300K) And they're still counting only CO2, despite the other, much worse, gases coming out of the volcano.

If you use the higher figure of 300Ktons/day you only need a small amount of another gas (say methane) to make the volcano worse than the planes. But that would completely ruin their argument.

UK MET-OFFICE

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Stopping flights, all over Europe? Pull the other one, mate. It's got bells on it. This is another dubious modeling outcome from the MET's GIGO simulations.

There was only one source that managed to stop the entire air-traffic in Europe. It was a mere computer simulation that came from the same jerks who are trying to convience the public of the CO2-scam since years.

The British MET-office took some data from the first hours(!)of the outbrak -- proceeded with their usual "gigo" (garbage in -- garbage out) -- and made one of their usual "predictions" -- that rarely turns out to be reality.

During all those next days this first data-set never got adapted, updated with actual data or even checked again.

Yesterday some European airline-managers were beginning to smell the rat and undertook first test-flights -- where they experienced no harm at all.

Re:UK MET-OFFICE

[nospam007]

"Stopping flights, all over Europe? [guardian.co.uk] Pull the other one, mate."

It's an International Railway Conspiracy.

Re:UK MET-OFFICE

[TheCowSaysMooNotBoo]

How do the Finnish airplanes fit in? It's all nice and dinky until an airplane experiences motor failure and it plummets down an urban center, right?

Re:UK MET-OFFICE

[Xelios]

Isn't this a case of "better safe than sorry"? Even if 99% of flights could resume with no problems at all, who's responsible for the 1% that run into serious trouble? Given that we're talking about tens of thousands of flights per day, even a 1/10,000 chance of disaster translates to a handful of planes per day that could simply fall out of the sky.

Re:UK MET-OFFICE

[Nimey]

That's why we call his sort "denialists" - they'll angrily deny anything that conflicts with their world-view.

Quite distinct from skeptics.

Re:UK MET-OFFICE

[Xest]

What about the Norwegian air ambulance helicopter, the Finnish airforce jets, and the MET office aircraft that did fly up there and did come back with measurable effects on their aircraft?

Or were they conveniently ignored because that doesn't fit well into an attempt to blame the met office?

Oh, and besides:

"During all those next days this first data-set never got adapted, updated with actual data or even checked again."

[citation needed]

I can't see any evidence anywhere whatsoever for the above quote, only evidence to the contrary- i.e. that continuous satellite data is being used (and not just by the met office), and also that the met office has as mentioned above sent aircraft up to test the effects too.

plane crashing preferable to slow suffocation

[Anonymous Coward]

send in (up) the clowns. nowhere to go really, or to hide.

Its going to get much worse...

[antonyb]

Looks like Katla's getting ready to blow too

http://scienceray.com/earth-sciences/locals-believe-katla-volcano-in-iceland-near-eyjafjallajokull-will-erupt-in-seven-days/

ant

Re:Its going to get much worse...

[MokuMokuRyoushi]

At first, I read your post as "Kayla's getting ready to blow", and thought, 'He has a girlfriend named Kayla too? Weird.' I'll leave that open to translation...

Re:Its going to get much worse...

[Anonymous Coward]

First they run the country down and go bankrupt, then they set the place on fire... I'm wondering if this is somekind of insurance fraud?

Re:Its going to get much worse...

[mr_stinky_britches]

mmm hot thanks!

Re:Its going to get much worse...

[Anonymous Coward]

same person, actually.

Re:Its going to get much worse...

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no evidence in that article other than historical patterns. As far as I've been able to determine from numerous sources, there is no sign of increased earthquake activity or inflation of the mountain at Katla yet (due to injection of magma at depth beneath it), and those processes will precede any significant eruption there just as it did at Eyjafjallajokull. It will not be a surprise. There's an extensive seismometer, GPS, and tiltmeter network around both these mountains (Eyjafjallajokull and Katla), so there will be at least a couple of days notice if Katla starts to stir. Look, here's a report from a few weeks before the Eyjafjallajokull eruption started (back in March). It's badly translated by Google Translate, but look at the clump of earthquakes around Eyjafjallajokull in the map (the peak on the left). Katla is the glacier covered peak on the right (labeled Myrdalsjokull -- the volcanic caldera of Katla is the circle with tick marks) -- not much going on back then. Back in March it was hard to tell if this earthquake spike was a sign an eruption was actually about to occur (sometimes you get magma moving around but never making it to the surface), but a similar spike in earthquakes beneath Katla will almost certainly occur there beforehand, and if it occurs you can be 100% sure that it will show up in the news, because people will start being evacuated from around that peak too. If you look at Iceland earthquake maps for the last week, or this one for the last 48 hours using Google Earth (you can also download a KML file), you can see most of them continue to be under Eyjafjallajokull and not under Katla.

So, yes, genuine cause for concern because of historical patterns and because Katla is a much larger and more explosive volcano historically (Ejafjallajokull's eruptions have a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 1, but Katla has had VEI up to 4, and it's a log scale), but nothing specific YET that suggests it is becoming active. Watch the news and we'll see.

Re:Its going to get much worse...

[Anonymous Coward]

That isn't a scientific report, but rather what the locals say. Not exactly good evidence that Katla is "ready to blow"

Re:Its going to get much worse...

[SolitaryMan]

At least, THOSE jokes would be funnier

Anne?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uumellmahaye ?

so is it...

[TehClaws]

..chance or risk?

Who laughed?

[AnonymousClown]

I didn't laugh. I was actually a little envious because you Europeans can get on a train and get home - if home is on the continent.

If we in the US have this problem, it's means renting a car to get home and all the hassles with dealing with that - our passenger rail is a complete joke outside of the North East corridor.

Re:Who laughed?

[Pharmboy]

We have passenger rail outside the northeast. You just rent a car, drive 90 miles to the depot, arrive near your destination, rent another car to drive 90 miles to your home. What could be easier? ;)

Re:Who laughed?

[AnonymousClown]

We have passenger rail outside the northeast. You just rent a car, drive 90 miles to the depot, arrive near your destination, rent another car to drive 90 miles to your home. What could be easier? ;)

You forgot the one hour plus lay overs like in Atlanta and other parts while the freight trains roll past and you wait for a connecting train.

I guess it beats walking.

Re:Who laughed?

[JaredOfEuropa]

You'd think so, and so did a lot of people from the north of Europe stranded in the south (and the other way around). There's an excellent fast rail link between the north and south, but it passes through France and of course there is a strike on. You might also think this would be a good opportunity to temporarily lift the strike and start getting people home... but you'd be wrong.

Re:Who laughed?

[DarkOx]

Or you know you could just get a cheap one way car rental from any of our many nation wide chains and use our highways which btw are some of the best in the world. You could leave when you want stop and rest when you like, stop any place that looks interesting etc etc. Download a book on tape to your MP3 player and hit the pavement man. When it comes to long distance interstate travel and you have time to do anything other than fly the car on a US highway beats any train, bus, subway, etc hands down!

Re:Who laughed?

[jackbird]

I take it you've never taken I-95 from DC to Boston.

Re:Who laughed?

[Pharmboy]

You forgot the one hour plus lay overs like in Atlanta and other parts while the freight trains roll past and you wait for a connecting train.

But thanks to all the delays in arrivals and departures, sometimes you only have a 3 minute layover to get from concourse A to concourse D, whereupon you can wait 45 minutes on the plane waiting to take off, enjoying the aromatic plane fumes. This is one reason that I now drive to Atlanta (5 hours) instead of fly, that and the TSA delays and hassles. Actually, I drive instead of fly for any trip I can drive in 8 hours or less now.

By the time you consider connecting flights (can't afford direct flights, which cost 2x-3x as much), delays, early checkin, waiting for luggage, waiting for rental, layovers, cavity searches, etc., it takes 5 to 8 hours to go anywhere you can drive in 8 hours anyway. I would just about take a Greyhound over flying nowadays.

Re:Who laughed?

[Bearhouse]

Ironic when you consider the role of railway in the initial growth of the USA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_the_United_States

Re:Who laughed?

[steelfood]

But that's because Jersey is in the way.

Re:Who laughed?

[xaxa]

Or you know you could just get a cheap one way car rental

We have cars in Europe too, you know. Unfortunately, we don't have enough for everyone that normally travels by plane to rent one and drive instead. You don't either. Also, you pretty much have to use a plane, train or a ferry to cross the English Channel.

our highways which btw are some of the best in the world

They aren't better than Europe's roads, but I think that's partly a question of climate (many of Europe's roads don't have to cope with as wide a range of temperatures as North America).

You could leave when you want stop and rest when you like, stop any place that looks interesting etc etc.

On a train you rest for the whole journey. You can use an MP3 player, or read an actual book, or sleep. On longer distance trains you can buy a meal, on all trains you can bring your own. You can drink (and buy) beer if you want to.

the car on a US highway beats any train, bus, subway, etc hands down!

No, but it probably does beat US trains.

Re:Who laughed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, you can get on a train and get home... unless the railway employees are on strike, as they are in France right now.

Re:Who laughed?

[phayes]

These are french train workers you are referring to: If it was in any way possible for them to have provoked the volcano into eruption in order for their strike to effect as many people as possible, they would have dons so. The french trainworkers are the only occupation other than lawyers that draws people with such abnormally low levels of empathy for other people.

Re:Who laughed?

[lymond01]

I take it you've never taken I-95 from DC to Boston.

DC to NY: 3 hours (200 miles)
Getting through NYC: 3 hours (15 miles)
NY to Boston: 3 hours (200 miles)

Driving straight through is pretty damn boring. Long highways flanked by trees. No views. Doing it again, I'd take more time and drive up the Jersey Shore, spend the night in NYC, maybe swing by Newport for lunch the next day, then bounce up to Boston for dinner in the North End.

Re:Who laughed?

[ari_j]

There's a reason that the only high-speed passenger rail in the USA is the northeast corridor - it's the place that needs it. For the rest of the nation, the interstate highway system is just fine, especially when supplemented with light rail in major cities (read: places with traffic problems). I wish we had a better national passenger rail network than we do, but it's just not feasible when most people end up driving anyhow and when our railroads are all built from the east coast out to the west.

I attribute this specifically to the fact that the American frontier was blazed when railroad technology already existed. In Europe, there was a good millennium or two of western civilization, permanent settlements that became major cities, and so on before the first rails were laid down. In America, rails were laid down at a time when many places were not even explored, much less settled. As a result, nobody knew when creating railroad grades and laying rail where the major cities were going to be. So they just made track out to Oregon and California. There was no call for a railroad from, for instance, Minneapolis to Dallas, so none was built.

By contrast, the interstate highway system came about basically 100 years later, and in that time the major cities had time to grow up enough that the highways could be built accordingly. And once those were built, there was even less call for north-south rail service. It also helps that interstates are a government thing while railroads are private, so nobody is going to lay track to get ten people a day from Missoula to Denver by rail.

As a result, if I want to get from Minnesota to Texas, I can ride a train via probably D.C. for about a week or I can just drive south on I-35 and make it in a day. And since that's the American mindset, it's hard to get any forward momentum on developing better passenger rail service in this country, except where the interstates are impractical, such as the northeast corridor.

Re:Who laughed?

[yurtinus]

[quote]I guess it beats walking.[/quote] Back in my day walking was all we had. If you were lucky you'd get a couple of oxen to haul your wagon, two yoke if you were a Banker. Teachers were out of luck though, they had to stock up on ammunition and hope to God they don't break an axle!

Kids these days... It's all fun and games until somebody dies of dysentery.

Re:Who laughed?

[CaptnMArk]

Can't wait for the next Top Gear: buy an old car in Greece, drive to north of France, add some float barrels and drive across the Channel. Faster than flying, again.

Re:Who laughed?

[xaxa]

They could have a floating bicycle as well!

Re:Who laughed?

[AnonymousClown]

Exactly!

And, I'm one of the two Americans that actually hate cars and driving.

I think it's funny that many of my fellow Americans complain about European taxation (which pays for the the mass transportation - it's not perfect but a hell of a lot better than here) and yet they spend thousands of dollars a year on: car payments, insurance, up keep, property taxes on the car, and gas.

I consider an automobile a tax - I must have it in order to live here in the States.

Re:Who laughed?

[Anonymous Coward]

I take it you've never taken a train? If Amtrak does it right, it's quite enjoyable. Just sit back and relax. Read a book, take a nap, or just zone out.

Re:Who laughed?

[KDR_11k]

I believe they're actually trying to make the railway system in Germany work without government subsidies so taxes wouldn't even be necessary to maintain that mass transportation.

Re:Who laughed?

[KDR_11k]

Isn't that a general trait of French strikes?

Re:Who laughed?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the same here in Canada, passenger trains are pretty much non-existant. The train system is only used for transporting goods like grain, chemicals, and coal. There might be the odd passenger train but it's very rare. The only choice is to drive or ride a bus.

Re:Who laughed?

[PachmanP]

I take it you've never taken I-95 from DC to Boston.

What?! That's smooth sailing if you leave at 9 pm. People don't do that during the day do they?

You just have to be careful in NJ. That state keeps trying to kill me...

Re:Who laughed?

[squiggleslash]

Both "Ironic" and "Caused by". It's no accident that the one place in the US where the railways work is the one area of the US that was already developed by the time the railways came along.

The railways that were built elsewhere where generally built for all the wrong reasons. The Union Pacific, for example, was originally a scam, riding on a wave of idealism, in which Congress was bribed to "fund" a transcontinental line with little or no oversight for the builders. Using a fake construction company, the UP built the cheapest line they could while simultaneously charging the government several times the cost.

Why? Because at the time, most businessmen steered clear of the TR project, believing it to be destined to be unprofitable, so the only people left were the scammers, and well-connected scammers set up the UP as a way to get huge amounts of money from the government rather than to set up a functional railway as a going concern.

The consequences of this and other expansion plans, also funded by taxes or other non-rail revenue (Flagler's FEC, for example, was created as a way to make his hotel resorts profitable), was a cheap railway system that started to show serious weaknesses as soon as alternative methods of transportation became viable. Outside of the North East, the majority of lines are not grade separated, and they're mostly single track. They're just about usable for freight, as long as you don't mind it taking days for an intermodal container to go from, say, Miami to New York, but it's impossible to run trains at moderate speeds (100mph, considered "ordinary" in most of the world, is rarely achievable here, where 60mph is generally the fastest trains go outside of the NEC), and impossible to run the high frequency trains needed for passenger service to be viable.

By the mid sixties, it was largely over. High taxes and poor Unionism pushed the systems over the edge, but there was little hiding the fact that passenger levels had plummeted for reasons of practicality. Whereas passenger numbers in, say, Britain, remained largely at the same order of magnitude (even if they had dropped), passengers had all but deserted the US lines.

What the US needs is a system of sane upgrades, but alas right now most of the efforts are going into building expensive intercity high speed lines. Double tracking and grade separating the existing lines would make a much bigger difference, but it's unsexy, and thus not likely to happen.

First global warming, now this!?

[bunratty]

As if the global warming fiasco wasn't bad enough, now there's this! Don't people know that volcanoes have been erupting for millions of years? This is purely a natural phenomenon, so shouldn't be of any concern whatsoever. A few hundred parts per million of a substance added to the atmosphere couldn't possibly have any effect. How could it? Just fly the darn airplanes already, and stop trying to create a one-world government where all travel is regulated. The fact that they've been making test flights through the ash prove that it's perfectly safe. Sheesh!

Re:First global warming, now this!?

[varcher]

A few hundred parts per million of a substance added to the atmosphere couldn't possibly have any effect. How could it?

Tell that to Mt. Tambora.

(ok, he had some help)

Iceland Invasion

[djdevon3]

I say we invade Iceland under an illegal carbon emissions pretext. They are obviously trying to import their toxic culture to the rest of the world.

Re:Iceland Invasion

[rla3rd]

I say we invade Iceland under an illegal carbon emissions pretext. They are obviously trying to export their toxic culture to the rest of the world.

there, fixed that for ya

st. john's weather is scizophrenic

[circletimessquare]

driving into st. johns from mainland newfoundland (st. johns is on a peninsula) you experience, in the span of about 15 minutes time: downpour of hard rain, then blissful sunshine, then deep fog, then heavy snow, then overcast clouds

the deeper observation is that weather is so fickle in the north atlantic latitudes, that the wind can and will shift back and forth from canada/ europe plenty of times throughout the weeks that this volcanoe blows

the downside is that you never know what will be canceled when or for how long

the upside is that you are still going to get to travel somewhere after a smallish delay (as opposed to canceled flights for weeks on end)

Maple Leaf = North America?

[courteaudotbiz]

Since when is the Maple Leaf the symbol of North America? Does it have something to do with the value of the dollar? The country with the highest valued dollar has its flag tagged as North American symbol?

Or is it simply that the title of the story should have been "Volcanic Ash Heading Towards New Foundland, Canada"?

Re:Maple Leaf = North America?

[rotide]

Just an FYI, North America is _not_ only the United States nor does it only mean Canada, Mexico, etc. Whatever you think the title of the story should have been, it appears there is a threat of ash to North America and thus using any North American flag, especially the flag of the first country to potentially be disrupted, seems appropriate.

Re:Maple Leaf = North America?

[M1FCJ]

Last time I looked at a map Canada was in North America as opposed to the South American bits.

The country you're thinking is called United States of America, not North America or just America.

Re:Maple Leaf = North America?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only USA/Canada/Mexico? Why of course, North America includes "St. Pierre and Miquelon" also!

Re:Maple Leaf = North America?

[Heed00]

Since when is the Maple Leaf the symbol of North America? Does it have something to do with the value of the dollar? The country with the highest valued dollar has its flag tagged as North American symbol? Or is it simply that the title of the story should have been "Volcanic Ash Heading Towards New Foundland, Canada"?

Newfoundland Canada is in North America, so the story title is perfectly accurate -- the cloud is moving towards a Canadian part of North America.

Also, the originating news source is from a Canadian newspaper, so the use of flag seems appropriate as well..

Re:Maple Leaf = North America?

[Hijacked Public]

There is a graphic of a tire there as well, and I am offended.

Since when does North America have a monopoly on tires? They don't. I was born in rural Angola, Africa and we even had tires there. When I was in Japan I saw tires. And in Iraq. And France and Italy and Belgium and Brasil and New Zealand. So how then can anyone place a graphic of a tire next to a story with "North America" in the title, as if tires are solely possessed by North America?

This is an obvious infringement of my rights.

Re:Maple Leaf = North America?

[Rhodin]

Where the Hell is Foundland, and what's so New about it? :)

It's Newfoundland and yes, I'm being pedantic, but that's because I'm a Newfoundlander*.

As I'm technically a Canadian as well, I kind of like the idea of a maple leaf showing up as opposed to the ole stars 'n stripes or some silly bald eagle. After all, we're on top. (Sorry Mexico.) ;)

* I am however, not a Newfie.

Re:Maple Leaf = North America?

[JustOK]

they ran away.

Re:Maple Leaf = North America?

[JustOK]

sounds like you're wheely tired of getting tread on. But don't worry, what goes around, comes around.

Re:Maple Leaf = North America?

[JustOK]

and Labrador. Everyone seems to forget about Labrador.

Re:Maple Leaf = North America?

[aristotle-dude]

Since when is the Maple Leaf the symbol of North America? Does it have something to do with the value of the dollar? The country with the highest valued dollar has its flag tagged as North American symbol? Or is it simply that the title of the story should have been "Volcanic Ash Heading Towards New Foundland, Canada"?

Are you completely unaware of how interconnected our two countries are? If the ash cloud is heading towards North America, it would have the potential of disrupting more than just flights to Europe. Air freight could be affected. If the cloud were to spread over to Alaska, say goodbye to Fedex packages from Asia which all come in from Anchorage, Alaska. Sure, they could eventually redirect through Hawaii and into Sea Tac but that could take some time.

Re:Maple Leaf = North America?

[Anonymous Coward]

Newfoundland NOT New Foundland. Actually that should be Newfoundland and Labrador, the proper title for the province. And the correct pronunciation is New-fun-land.

Re:Maple Leaf = North America?

[ceoyoyo]

Also, North America is pretty big. It's unlikely the ash will have much direct effect on Mexico or Florida, for example.

The ash could well be limited to Newfoundland.

Re:Maple Leaf = North America?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh noes americunts are forced to realize they aren't the only country on the continent. Cry more.

Re:Maple Leaf = North America?

[Anonymous Coward]

We're bigger, and we're on top. Get used to it.

Re:Maple Leaf = North America?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about everyone else, but I'm getting rather tired of the complaints about supposedly inappropriate icons.

Re:Maple Leaf = North America?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously, but these types never let appropriateness interfere with their affronted-ness. They have formed a strong attachment to particular continent to country association, and cannot tolerate anything which challenges that attachment. I would say it has something to do with wanting symmetry with the country to continent association, but it's more likely immaturity and hubris.

One sees a similar dysfunction with people who intentionally use "United Statesian" in an attempt to goad US citizens. They view "Americans" as an affront because the USA is not the only country on the continent. The small detail that there is no continent named "America" is deemed irrelevant (North America and South America combined are termed "The Americas", not "America"), as is the origin of "American" being an abbreviation for "United States of American." The polyseme somehow makes them feel neglected or forgotten, so they lash out--just as courteaudotbiz did.

It seems human nature to defend one's own culture against imagined slights.

Take off and nuke them from orbit

[FreeUser]

It's the only way to be sure.

Just don't try to take off from the UK, western Europe, or (soon) Eastern Canada.

You're kidding, right?

[Taagehornet]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Rakshasa Taisab]

The current situation is also a case of 'erring on the side of caution til we know more' kind of thing.

Do not doubt that there will be a lot of studies from now on to determine what amounts of volcanic ash is safe, what procedures will be needed and such. The next time a volcano erupts over major air traffic space the response will be much more tempered.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them under control. I trust you are not in too much distress.

Wow! People, this is an amazing story that you need to read!

Are you sure about that?

[Minwee]

A volcano, in ICELAND? Tell me another one. Everybody knows that volcanoes are only in warm places like Hawaii.

Re:Are you sure about that?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Hey, they have hot girls in Iceland, why couldn't they have hot mountains?

Re:Are you sure about that?

[RPoet]

Is that you, Rick Sanchez?

Re:Are you sure about that?

[QuietObserver]

Actually, ignoring the fact that there are volcanoes all along the western coast of the US (including the famous Mount St. Helens in Washington, the state), Iceland is known as "The Land of Fire and Ice" for a very good reason.

Jet stream doesn't go that way.

[flyingfsck]

Hmmm, nope. The jet stream goes west to east in the northern hemisphere.

Re:Jet stream doesn't go that way.

[actionbastard]

Generally, yes. However, you need to look at this: http://wxmaps.org/pix/NHanim.html, to understand why it's possible for this to occur.

On the bright side....

[Nidi62]

A few more strong eruptions like this in different regions around the world, and there'll be enough ash in the sky to knock the temperature down a little bit. Global Warming is solved!

follow up joke:

[circletimessquare]

the iceland economy, that died in 2008, stipulated in its last wishes that its ashes be spread over europe

Doesn't anyone read the @#%#@$ article??

[skidisk]

The first sentence: "Fears receded Monday that the fallout from Iceland’s volcanic eruption would disrupt flights within North America."

News Flash(es)

[TrisexualPuppy]

Here's a good, up-to-date list of eruptions in 2010. Updated fairly frequently, so it should give travelers a little insight before it hits the main media.

Re:News Flash(es)

[Bearhouse]

Actually, that link won't help. The ash from an eruption can travel great distances, and the direction changes with the wind.
You're better of consulting your local http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_Ash_Advisory_Centre

Interesting Animation of Dispersal

[DieByWire]

Here's an interesting animation of the dispersal from Denmarks's weather service: island_vulcano6000.gif

Re:Interesting Animation of Dispersal

[Anonymous Coward]

The Norwegians have a version as well that extends west to Canada:
http://www.mcwetboy.net/maproom/2010/04/eyjafjallajoeku_1.php

While you're at it

[HalAtWork]

And while you're at it, stop using "America" to refer to only one country within America!

it symbolizes civilized north america

[circletimessquare]

the 2 other major countries in north america are currently in pandemonium, experiencing

1. insurrection by narcoterrorist drug mafia and

2. insurrection by antigovernment mindless zealots, respectively

(to seriously answer your question, the maple leaf symbolizes canada, which is affected by the volcano, not the usa)

No planes, trains and automobiles

[malloryweis]

I've just got home (Monday 14:00 GMT) having left a conference (the international liver forum) in Vienna on Saturday 15:00 GMT. A train to Munich, folllowed by a overnight train to amsterdam, Ferry from Amsterdam to Newcastle (England), Train from Newcastle to Glasgow (Scotland). 7,500 people at the conference and major difficulties for those from the states (about 700) trying to get home - some bussed south to Rome, which subsequently also closed. If this hits the US significantly expect major disruption, Bummer is I'm supposed to be flying to Houston on Saturday to visit a friend.

Re:No planes, trains and automobiles

[bazorg]

That's a lot of effort to get to... Glasgow... I hope that Frankie Boyle reads your post :D

Re:No planes, trains and automobiles

[malloryweis]

Can you think of anywhere more appropriate to fly to after attending a liver conference?

Re:No planes, trains and automobiles

[bazorg]

well I thought the cause and effect would be reversed in this case!

Re:No planes, trains and automobiles

[dominious]

video conference anyone? The EU transport ministers just had one video-conference:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8630632.stm

Following talks with the bloc's 27 transport ministers by video conference, EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas told reporters in Brussels more planes would start flying from Tuesday.

Can't take off, eh?

[Heed00]

Sorry, just had to -- I'm a hoser.

Re:Can't take off, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Geez, yer on fire there with the jokes, eh?... I liked the Canadian Tire one the best, though, but no mod points to spare.

Maple Leaf FTW

[dazedNconfuzed]

Canada - leading the world in being just north of the USA.

Canadian Tire

[Heed00]

That graphic is actually another code for Canadian -- it's a Canadian Tire.

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

This is coming from a VERY bored traveler!

At the risk of looking dumb...

[pla]

I always thought the wind (on a global scale) moves from the West to the East.

Wouldn't the ash from an Icelandic volcano reach Alaska long before St. John, and then only after going halfway around the planet over Northern Europe and Russia?

Re:At the risk of looking dumb...

[Anonymous Coward]

> I always thought the wind (on a global scale) moves from the West to the East.

Yes, on a global scale. No, on a local scale.

Current and predicted Atlantic jetstream flows here:

Jetstream predictions

Re:At the risk of looking dumb...

[IICV]

You may be surprised to learn that the Earth is a sphere. If you move far enough from the West to the East, you end up in the West again. It's kind of like Asteroids.

Re:At the risk of looking dumb...

[pla]

You may be surprised to learn that the Earth is a sphere. If you move far enough from the West to the East, you end up in the West again. It's kind of like Asteroids.

C'mon, I only wrote two sentences. You couldn't bother to read them both?

"...and then only after going halfway around the planet over Northern Europe and Russia?"

Re:At the risk of looking dumb...

[IICV]

C'mon, I only wrote two sentences. You couldn't bother to read them both?

Hah, you're lucky I even bothered to finish my se

Laugh on.

[Explodicle]

We'll see who's Eyjafjallajoking when it reaches us.

Pronunciation

[wcrowe]

Personally, I'm having fun with the pronunciation. Especially since every Icelander seems to have their own way of saying it. I'm going with eya-love-a-jock-itch.

Up in Smoke

[mabowman]

Don't Worry, it was all a bunch of hot air: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/volcanic-cloud-fears-lift-canadian-airspace-remains-open/article1539013/

Kidnapping???

[mcneely.mike]

The ash isn't coming until Monday, but they're (we're) cancelling flights now....
sounds suspiciously like us Canadians keeping people with money and credit cards against their will....
muuhaahaahaa...
THIS IS HOW CANADIANS KEEP THEIR ECONOMY STRONG, EH!!!
Learn from us world... learn from us.
signed... Terrance and Phillip

Nothing to see here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Game on! http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2010/04/19/nl-flights-resume-419.html

Is it finally time

[Anonymous Coward]

for a resurgence in trans-atlantic cruise ships?

or would a modern incarnation be just as cramped and overpriced as planes have become?

We should sanction Iceland

[GodfatherofSoul]

That stupid country is costing the world economy BILLIONS with their stupid volcanoes. Can't they just pour some snow or ice into the volcano and cool it off? WTF is the point in calling yourself Iceland if you don't have enough ice to do that?

Re:We should sanction Iceland

[Anonymous Coward]

Iceland doesn't need volcanoes to cost other countries billions ;-)

For those of you wondering...

[Anonymous Coward]

For those of you wondering, it's pronounced: Eh-ya-fyat-la-yuh-cuttle (the name of the volcano, Eyjafjallajokull)

Re:For those of you wondering...

[Intron]

For those of you wondering, it's pronounced: Eh-ya-fyat-la-yuh-cuttle (the name of the volcano, Eyjafjallajokull)

Thanks for clearing that up. It hasn't come up on my Word-a-Day calendar.

British Navy NOT Coming to US

[xquercus]

And back on topic, the Brit. Navy is actually sending two warships over to the US to pick up people. I think that's pretty impressive.

I don't think so. The British Navy is sending ships to Spain to help transport stranded passengers from there to the UK. Brits in the US still have to get to Spain.

Obligitory comment

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we blame the LHC yet?

any sacrifice volunteers?

[Tablizer]

This is the time that virgins with bad keyboards get nervous.

Sky dude is spanking us

[Tablizer]

Rush Limbaugh suggested it's punishment for passing health-care reform. Is Pat Robertson on vacation or something?

Re:Sky dude is spanking us

[ScentCone]

Danny Glover said that the Haitian earthquake happened because there wasn't enough climate treaty action in Denmark with week before. Was Al Gore on vacation?

Re:Sky dude is spanking us

[Tablizer]

Actor opinions should be treated like those of any ordinary Joe. Preachers have a bit more duty to think about what they say in my opinion because expressing opinion is their job. (True, some put actor opinions on the same scale.)

Look on the bright side...

[aapold]

this stuff will help fertilize farmland, won't it?

Iceland IS a warm place.

[Anonymous Coward]

Iceland IS a warm place, haven't you ever heard of their hot springs?

If you're looking for a cold place, try Greenland..

The joke page

[raind]

Browsing at 5 almost every post is some smart ash comment labeled funny. Lame

Roger the cabin boy /nt

[Anonymous Coward]

Roger the cabin boy /nt

In capitalist america...

[vescovi]

In capitalist america, volcanic ash heads towards YOU!

What no Newfie jokes?

[Anonymous Coward]

I won't be the first to start them here :-)

Pictures of Finnish F-18 engines after ash flight

[saddlark]

Norway has mostly F-16s.

You may be referring to this incident with Finnish F-18 Hornets vs Ash:

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/04/16/340727/pictures-finnish-f-18-engine-check-reveals-effects-of-volcanic.html

NUCLEAR WINTER ALERT

[ImitationEnergy]

I tried to tell em Lord but they wouldn't listen => NUCLEAR WINTER ALERT. Ice Age come on down bro. And when it gets cold enough the crude oil won't come out the ground brother. Forget "Peak Oil" we're going to come face to face with the Ice Man, and he's gonna win, not us. This is my last warning build my engines now, and when I get these Gravity Wheels running in a few days or weeks from now somebody better help get em into production I can't do it with a monthly disability check. http://www.justgravity.com/ link at bottom to early first draft animation that has been vastly improved and other designs. Otherwise we're gonna freeze into Day After Tomorrow ice sculptures.

/. thinks they're cute putting Karma Bad under my name eh?? You haven't seen Bad Karma yet. Soon, real soon. There's more than one volcano on this rock and they're getting ready to do the same thing. Phooey.