Isn't this the prequel to 'The Stand'? Folks create nasty super bug for research, then it gets loose. I doubt this would rise to the level of a 'Captain Tripps', but it sounds like it could be nasty.
I'd be more worried about some dumb bastard making a version of smallpox that acts like the GM'd Australian mousepox. 100% lethal in unvaccinated population and around 50% lethal in the vaccinated one.
... I practice for the day a hunter steps on to my property. I want to make sure I'm a good enough shot to scare him off without blowing his brains out....
Hunting aside, shooting an RC aircraft flying low over your property is one thing and may or may not be illegal.
Shooting at folks who've broken into your house is pretty defensible,especially if they're packing.
Shooting at folks (even near folks) who are on you property, can be reasonably expected to be hunters and may or may not realize they're trespassing will probably land you in the poke.
Shooting a handgun at folks with deer rifles is a very serious violation of the prudential law and will certainly get you a dirt nap on or off your property. Even if the guy with the long gun is prosecuted, you'll still be quite dead. Much more effective to simply let them know they've strayed onto private land, the exit is that-a-way.
CSIRO, an Australian research organisation released research relating to mouse pox virus modifications that created a deadly virus precisely because it was hoped that it would lead to better treatments. They also surmised that governments around the world already knew about this but had kept it secret.
http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/001755.html
Really? Re-read the linked futurepundit article and the following abstract. Per the FP article, a US group was hired by the US Gov to re-create the same mousepox virus to investigate defenses; the Aussies did it by accident...
"Rodent plagues cause a major problem for agriculture in many temperate regions, and immunocontraception offers a new method to control fertility in these and other pest vertebrates. However, it is difficult to find an effective carrier for contraceptives for large numbers of pest animals in the field. In a new study, Jackson et al. manipulated the mousepox virus to boost the immune response in infected mice Mus musculus when testing the basis for controlling their fecundity rates. However, all infected mice (and half of recently immunized mice) died. Despite these unexpected and dramatic results of the engineering of mousepox virus, immunocontraception remains the most promising method for fertility control and management of pest vertebrates."
According to this and every other story I've read, the extreme lethality (100% of un-vaccinated mice!!!, 50% of recently vaccinated) of the engineered mousepox caught them very much by surprise. And this Dutch yahoo is flarking around with amplifying a human flu virus's lethality? Because he can? What sort of security does the lab employ? Any at all? The bad old USSR is had factories tooled to manufacture weaponized bio agents by the ton and worked on smallpox. Smallpox is already pretty bad; how bad when amplified or engineered? How much of that agent still exists?
OK, in the US, eco-nuts regularly break into labs with experimental animals and release them. Has this occurred in the Netherlands?
...Today, ALF has grown far beyond its British roots, becoming a significant
international movement with an unknown number of members and
supporters worldwide. ALF cells are or have been active in the United
Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain..--snip--.
pg 41, Eco-Terrorism - Radical Environmental and Animal Liberation Movements
A heavy concentration of animal rights activity was located in the
Scandinavian countries, with Sweden leading with 9.5% of all records in
the database. Other countries represented in the database include Finland,
Canada, Norway, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany,
Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands.... --snip--,
pg 82, Eco-Terrorism - Radical Environmental and Animal Liberation Movements
And then there's that sentiment that humans are a plague on the earth, the population of which ought to be thinned.
"On 5 November, the upmarket Nightwaves on BBC Radio 3 aired a discussion about overpopulation between Dr Susan Blackmore (a neuroscientist) and Professor John Gray (of the London School of Economics).
Dr Blackmore said the "fundamental problem" facing the planet today is that "there are too many people". Professor Gray agreed. Then Dr Blackmore declared: "For the planet's sake, I hope we have bird flu or some other thing that will reduce the population, because otherwise we're doomed."
Read more:
It's not just the USSR, take a look at the major rivers of that worker's paradise, the PRC, or just about any other Statist country. The only societies that can afford ecological sensibilities are wealthy ones. The poor ones don't give a crap.
The protesters are actually fairly well organized with planned events, a voting process for making immediate decisions, and a goal of getting Obama to acknowledge the wealth gap and appointing a commission to recommend actions for dealing with it.
I'm curious what you would suggest as a solution to the "wealth gap". Confiscate the property of those who have worked for it and give it to folks who haven't? Pray tell what will happen when, eventually, you run out of folks willing to be robbed?
Facebook posts are copyrighted by the poster, the same as any newspaper article or photograph is, and if they use those copyrighted works in their reports, they are infringing - and good luck trying to make a fair use exemption fly if sued over it.
You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings. In addition:
1. For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.
2. When you delete IP content, it is deleted in a manner similar to emptying the recycle bin on a computer. However, you understand that removed content may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time (but will not be available to others).
3. When you use an application, your content and information is shared with the application. We require applications to respect your privacy, and your agreement with that application will control how the application can use, store, and transfer that content and information. (To learn more about Platform, read our Privacy Policy and Platform Page.)
4. When you publish content or information using the Public setting, it means that you are allowing everyone, including people off of Facebook, to access and use that information, and to associate it with you (i.e., your name and profile picture).
Plus you're lifting all the fuel for the trip up and back, plus margin, in a bird that's a lot heavier that it should be (typical liquid fueled rockets are not exactly structurally robust, much integrity is derived from the pressure in the tank...Think soda can; full it'll carry quite a lot. Empty, heh, crunch.
It'll be big.
And land on a ship from a sub orbital ballistic... Are they also patenting unbounded optimism?
LOL. Which SciFi writer gamed this out, L. Ron? Jeezus, just build simple expendable solid boosters... Didn't they learn anything from the shuttle program?
Whether or not the actions proposed by the FCC are good and beneficial to the market, both the Congress and the Judiciary specifically instructed the FCC that it was not within it's authority to do it. It is legally allowed only to do that which Congress says it can, by law, passed by congress. It is proceeding with the rules, ignoring Congress and Judges. The Executive branch is acting outside the law, in this matter, thumbing it's nose at the other two branches, which have told it not to.
Regardless of whether you like the law or not, ours is a Constitutional Representative Republic and we ignore the precedent set by FCC's action at our peril and move another step towards an absolute executive (bear in mind, that the president will likely be from the other party before long). The FCC is saying Fuck the constitution, we know best: this IS high crimes...any executive branch official who thinks he can get away with it needs to be trotted in front of Congress, in irons.
Of course to the true Progressive, this is all fine and dandy, since the Constitution is an impediment to their goals anyway; to which they pay lip-service when necessary and ignore when they can.
There are cases of government initiatives working really well though. Take, for example, the anti-currency DRM they have installed in every (?) consumer-grade printing device.
When it *really* matters to them, the government can be highly effective.
Or the dot patterns laid down by color printers as a watermark...
The first three comments are about how evil the US is for negotiating a method to obtail specific items of information retained by the EU. Not wholsale access, per TFA. No comment on the fact that the EU authorities are collecting, wholesale, all info passing on email, phones, etc. Hell, the British intel agencies have been at it for a while already. And you imagine the French police don't? Meh.
So who's the one not respecting privacy rights, the robber or the one who asks to share the robber's take? Of course it's easier to carp over the other guy, than come to terms that the EU is at least, if not more paternalistic than the US. All the privacy laws seem to rigidly control what individuals and companies can do but pretty much give a free pass the the governments.
Both are bad for the citizens of the US and the EU. Both point to the other countries policies and say, "See, they do it, so we should too." When both citiens stand firm and pressure their reps to do the right thing, we support each other. Of course, I have no illusions of how easy that is.
venril
If you define your terms properly, you can be right no matter what position you take.
Hmm, Dada has been entirely consistent in his description of coercive and non-coercive monoplies. They are not the same thing by any stretch of the imagination. (errm, wait, I forgot where I was.)
As Dada has stated and restated - coercive monopolies require the use of force to perpetuate. Usually this means government force - but could mean illegal use of force by the entity. Note that I said Illegal use of force. There are legal barriers to entry eg the Bell System you mentioned. Bell couldn't have behaved as they did with out the fed's gun supporting them.
A non-coercive monopoly could be based on any of several factors for it's existence. Generally - a better product, better service, better business strategy. No legal barriers to entry into the market. They exist because they do it better than everyone else. What remedy would you propose? That they publicise their processes for anyone to use? Why should they? If you don't like it, go do it better. Yes they exist and they should be left alone.
FDR
/Cackle. Oh boy, never ceases to amaze me that this scoundrel is so lionized and that his misdeeds are so completely ignored. The New Deal? No, the Raw Deal is a much more accurate description of the sneak attack on the Constituion by his administration. Make no mistake, his administration was a revolution within the form of the law. And then some. The problems (depression?) were caused by the Fed's incredibly inept interference in the market, not by a free market. Ask Uncle Milt.
Garet Garrett http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garet_Garrett was one of the most eloquent of his critics. He wrote extensively of what was done, why it was done, how it was done and the ramifications to the Republic - consolidated in 1951 into The Peoples Pottage
"one thing takes the place of another, so that the ancient laws will remain, while the power will be in the hands of those who have brought about revolution in the state." -Aristotle
Julius C. Smith, of the American Bar Association, saying: "Is there any labor leader, any businessman, any lawyer or any other citizen of America so blind that he cannot see that this country is drifting at an accelerated pace into administrative absolutism similar to that which prevailed in the governments of antiquity, the governments of the Middle Ages, and in the great totalitarian governments of today? Make no mistake about it. Even as Mussolini and Hitler rose to absolute power under the forms of law... so may administrative absolutism be fastened upon this country within the Constitution and within the forms of law."
Which has nothing to do with my arguement. 'Look at the pretty kitty...'
Investigate Maslow's Heirarchy before you go ascribing people's behavior in extremis - in the Army, when I had to command people, it was a very useful tool in understanding how people really behave, not some artificial construct such as you describe.
Yes, let's. I'm curious to what 'artificial contruct' you refer, but you seem to like offering tangential, vague comments as a connotation of superiourity. Ref your "when are you moving to NO..." post - wholly non sequitor to the parent and in fact counter to your obvious retorical intent. Were you talking about the termites example? That's the only 'construct' I created, I think. I wasn't discussion folks behaviour as they were at risk of life. I was discussing behaviour of government folks far removed from any risk - behaviour well in advance of any hurricane (uhm, years?) As far as Maslow Heirarchy of needs(1) goes, let's see, at the bottom are basic physical needs - food, water, air, etc. I can understand looting food from this context, but that's not what we were discussing.
Next it's Safety - gee, I think secure levies kinda falls under this heading, don't you? I suppose the Superdome was keeping the Saints safe from the elements but I think that is rather a stretch. I guess they skipped Security and Emotional connection and went straight to Esteem. They drowned but the City's collective self-esteem was wonderful? So, what exactly was your point besides taking the opportunity to snipe at the US, tell us you commanded folks in the Army and drop names?
If your goal was to provide ironic support to the parent, you've succeeded. What occurred in NO is from start to finish due to government incompetence on all levels - but weighted more towards the City and State. (How much did the stadium cost?) Predictably, the government-will fix-it solution failed miserably.
They failed to mitigate the risk to begin with and failed to effectively follow-up after the storm. The only outfits that performed rationally were various private companies that had plans and executed them. Like HCA or a few communications companies. HCA staged supplies, had a fleet of helos on order and removed their clients promptly from the hospital they operate - providing assistance to a couple nearby public hospitals - whose management had not planned effectively. While the city and state officials were standing around with their collective, uhm, appendages, in their hands.
Anyway, if an inspector tells you your house has termites, do you a) call an exterminator and fix the damaged wood or b) buy a new giant HDTV and get a Hummer (the vehicle - minds outa da gutter!) then call Dad and ask for help 'cause you're out of money? Guess which route NO and Louisiana took?
How does that compare to a country that diverted money away from flood defences to the military, leading to thousands of deaths, and doesn't have a national health service despite having the largest economy and greatest military spending in the world?
To answer your question; the US (I assume your uhm, clever, rejoinder was describing the US) compares quite favorably to the PRC, thanks very much.
There was an interesting documentary on what-went-wrong.
They were monkeying around with power levels to perform some tests by manipulating damping rod positions, and water flow into the core. [btw, the pumps used to move water into the core were electric and, you guessed it, were powered by tapping from the plants own generators. Low or no power, no pumps =P ] While the rods could damp the reaction, water was critical to control/moderate temp change over time. Heat removal by the water buffered the the damp rod control loop. No water and temp fluctuations occur faster and acceleration changes rapidly.
So..
(shaking rust off memory)They ran the power (heat) output of the core low. Over controled it below min levels, decreased water flow, cranked up the power by pulling some rods to get power up. Power ran up to high side, dropped some rods in, added water too quickly, cooled core too much, no steam output, turbines stall, tech panics and pulls ALL of the rods (big no-no, he forgot to RTFM), core temp climbs, water cannot be provided quickly enough (no power), water flashes off into steam, core over heats, ignites graphite - boom.
More or less.
A nice feedback loop they they magnified causing increasing excursions with ever larger over corrections - doh!
Current reactor designs use the working fluid ( or intermediate heat transfer fluid) as the moderator; the reaction cannot proceed with out the moderator being present to slow the neutrons. If the fluid drains out, the reaction halts and the reactor cools. If the reactor gets too hot, the moderator boils off, again halting the reaction. Kinda hard to get into a meltdown condition.
...and yet, miraculously, there are people out there who buy that stuff... if there weren't there wouldn't be any spam...
Exactly. I'm amazed the merchants for whom these bastards advertise have not been pursued for conspiracy or under RICO, since the spammers engage in illegal behaviour all the time. And their clients know it. Send a few of them away, and the revenue will dry up in no time.
-me
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone old enough to remember INSLAW? http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.01/inslaw.html
Isn't this the prequel to 'The Stand'? Folks create nasty super bug for research, then it gets loose. I doubt this would rise to the level of a 'Captain Tripps', but it sounds like it could be nasty.
I'd be more worried about some dumb bastard making a version of smallpox that acts like the GM'd Australian mousepox. 100% lethal in unvaccinated population and around 50% lethal in the vaccinated one.
... I practice for the day a hunter steps on to my property. I want to make sure I'm a good enough shot to scare him off without blowing his brains out....
Hunting aside, shooting an RC aircraft flying low over your property is one thing and may or may not be illegal.
Shooting at folks who've broken into your house is pretty defensible ,especially if they're packing.
Shooting at folks (even near folks) who are on you property, can be reasonably expected to be hunters and may or may not realize they're trespassing will probably land you in the poke.
Shooting a handgun at folks with deer rifles is a very serious violation of the prudential law and will certainly get you a dirt nap on or off your property. Even if the guy with the long gun is prosecuted, you'll still be quite dead. Much more effective to simply let them know they've strayed onto private land, the exit is that-a-way.
btw, IANAL.
One word: Haiti.
CSIRO, an Australian research organisation released research relating to mouse pox virus modifications that created a deadly virus precisely because it was hoped that it would lead to better treatments. They also surmised that governments around the world already knew about this but had kept it secret. http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/001755.html
Really? Re-read the linked futurepundit article and the following abstract. Per the FP article, a US group was hired by the US Gov to re-create the same mousepox virus to investigate defenses; the Aussies did it by accident...
http://www.cse.csiro.au/research/rodents/abstracts/Abstract_Ylonen_2001_TREE_Rodent%20plagues,%20immunocontraception.pdf
From the abstract:
"Rodent plagues cause a major problem for agriculture in many temperate regions, and immunocontraception offers a new method to control fertility in these and other pest vertebrates. However, it is difficult to find an effective carrier for contraceptives for large numbers of pest animals in the field. In a new study, Jackson et al. manipulated the mousepox virus to boost the immune response in infected mice Mus musculus when testing the basis for controlling their fecundity rates. However, all infected mice (and half of recently immunized mice) died. Despite these unexpected and dramatic results of the engineering of mousepox virus, immunocontraception remains the most promising method for fertility control and management of pest vertebrates."
According to this and every other story I've read, the extreme lethality (100% of un-vaccinated mice!!!, 50% of recently vaccinated) of the engineered mousepox caught them very much by surprise. And this Dutch yahoo is flarking around with amplifying a human flu virus's lethality? Because he can? What sort of security does the lab employ? Any at all? The bad old USSR is had factories tooled to manufacture weaponized bio agents by the ton and worked on smallpox. Smallpox is already pretty bad; how bad when amplified or engineered? How much of that agent still exists?
OK, in the US, eco-nuts regularly break into labs with experimental animals and release them. Has this occurred in the Netherlands?
...Today, ALF has grown far beyond its British roots, becoming a significant international movement with an unknown number of members and supporters worldwide. ALF cells are or have been active in the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain..--snip--.
pg 41, Eco-Terrorism - Radical Environmental and Animal Liberation Movements
A heavy concentration of animal rights activity was located in the Scandinavian countries, with Sweden leading with 9.5% of all records in the database. Other countries represented in the database include Finland, Canada, Norway, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands.... --snip--,
pg 82, Eco-Terrorism - Radical Environmental and Animal Liberation Movements And then there's that sentiment that humans are a plague on the earth, the population of which ought to be thinned.
"On 5 November, the upmarket Nightwaves on BBC Radio 3 aired a discussion about overpopulation between Dr Susan Blackmore (a neuroscientist) and Professor John Gray (of the London School of Economics). Dr Blackmore said the "fundamental problem" facing the planet today is that "there are too many people". Professor Gray agreed. Then Dr Blackmore declared: "For the planet's sake, I hope we have bird flu or some other thing that will reduce the population, because otherwise we're doomed." Read more:
It's not just the USSR, take a look at the major rivers of that worker's paradise, the PRC, or just about any other Statist country. The only societies that can afford ecological sensibilities are wealthy ones. The poor ones don't give a crap.
The protesters are actually fairly well organized with planned events, a voting process for making immediate decisions, and a goal of getting Obama to acknowledge the wealth gap and appointing a commission to recommend actions for dealing with it.
I'm curious what you would suggest as a solution to the "wealth gap". Confiscate the property of those who have worked for it and give it to folks who haven't? Pray tell what will happen when, eventually, you run out of folks willing to be robbed?
Facebook posts are copyrighted by the poster, the same as any newspaper article or photograph is, and if they use those copyrighted works in their reports, they are infringing - and good luck trying to make a fair use exemption fly if sued over it.
Uhm, no.
From FB TOS http://www.facebook.com/terms.php?ref=pf
2 Sharing Your Content and Information
You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings. In addition:
1. For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.
2. When you delete IP content, it is deleted in a manner similar to emptying the recycle bin on a computer. However, you understand that removed content may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time (but will not be available to others).
3. When you use an application, your content and information is shared with the application. We require applications to respect your privacy, and your agreement with that application will control how the application can use, store, and transfer that content and information. (To learn more about Platform, read our Privacy Policy and Platform Page.)
4. When you publish content or information using the Public setting, it means that you are allowing everyone, including people off of Facebook, to access and use that information, and to associate it with you (i.e., your name and profile picture).
It'll be big.
And land on a ship from a sub orbital ballistic... Are they also patenting unbounded optimism?
LOL. Which SciFi writer gamed this out, L. Ron? Jeezus, just build simple expendable solid boosters... Didn't they learn anything from the shuttle program?
Where's James Bond when you need him?
Back in the VGA gaming days, games were all single-player.
The original Doom game had multiplayer support over a LAN - coop. Was a bit unstable though...
Regardless of whether you like the law or not, ours is a Constitutional Representative Republic and we ignore the precedent set by FCC's action at our peril and move another step towards an absolute executive (bear in mind, that the president will likely be from the other party before long). The FCC is saying Fuck the constitution, we know best: this IS high crimes...any executive branch official who thinks he can get away with it needs to be trotted in front of Congress, in irons.
Of course to the true Progressive, this is all fine and dandy, since the Constitution is an impediment to their goals anyway; to which they pay lip-service when necessary and ignore when they can.
"All you base are belong to..... oh, never mind........" ~Anonymous
An excuse used by Progressives in the Fed to rationalize extending their control over more parts of the economy and your life.
There are cases of government initiatives working really well though. Take, for example, the anti-currency DRM they have installed in every (?) consumer-grade printing device.
When it *really* matters to them, the government can be highly effective.
Or the dot patterns laid down by color printers as a watermark...
Our typewriters are already registered?
but something as pricey as brain imaging is completely pointless unless it can exceed the performance of paper, not just correlate with it.
Of course, it's not pointless if it garners him a research grant.
The world is full of 'scientists', eager find interesting things that make no economic sense, on someone elses buck/pound.
So who's the one not respecting privacy rights, the robber or the one who asks to share the robber's take? Of course it's easier to carp over the other guy, than come to terms that the EU is at least, if not more paternalistic than the US. All the privacy laws seem to rigidly control what individuals and companies can do but pretty much give a free pass the the governments. Both are bad for the citizens of the US and the EU. Both point to the other countries policies and say, "See, they do it, so we should too." When both citiens stand firm and pressure their reps to do the right thing, we support each other. Of course, I have no illusions of how easy that is. venril
Hmm, Dada has been entirely consistent in his description of coercive and non-coercive monoplies. They are not the same thing by any stretch of the imagination. (errm, wait, I forgot where I was.)
As Dada has stated and restated - coercive monopolies require the use of force to perpetuate. Usually this means government force - but could mean illegal use of force by the entity. Note that I said Illegal use of force. There are legal barriers to entry eg the Bell System you mentioned. Bell couldn't have behaved as they did with out the fed's gun supporting them.
A non-coercive monopoly could be based on any of several factors for it's existence. Generally - a better product, better service, better business strategy. No legal barriers to entry into the market. They exist because they do it better than everyone else. What remedy would you propose? That they publicise their processes for anyone to use? Why should they? If you don't like it, go do it better. Yes they exist and they should be left alone.
FDR
Garet Garrett http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garet_Garrett was one of the most eloquent of his critics. He wrote extensively of what was done, why it was done, how it was done and the ramifications to the Republic - consolidated in 1951 into The Peoples Pottage
Excerpts from part of it, The Revolution Was http://www.rooseveltmyth.com/docs/The_Revolution_W as.html:
"one thing takes the place of another, so that the ancient laws will remain, while the power will be in the hands of those who have brought about revolution in the state." -Aristotle
Julius C. Smith, of the American Bar Association, saying: "Is there any labor leader, any businessman, any lawyer or any other citizen of America so blind that he cannot see that this country is drifting at an accelerated pace into administrative absolutism similar to that which prevailed in the governments of antiquity, the governments of the Middle Ages, and in the great totalitarian governments of today? Make no mistake about it. Even as Mussolini and Hitler rose to absolute power under the forms of law... so may administrative absolutism be fastened upon this country within the Constitution and within the forms of law."
OK, you invited this one...
ah, Will, thy name is troll...
I saw the puff pieces for the NOLA Elites ...
Which has nothing to do with my arguement. 'Look at the pretty kitty...'
Investigate Maslow's Heirarchy before you go ascribing people's behavior in extremis - in the Army, when I had to command people, it was a very useful tool in understanding how people really behave, not some artificial construct such as you describe.
Yes, let's. I'm curious to what 'artificial contruct' you refer, but you seem to like offering tangential, vague comments as a connotation of superiourity. Ref your "when are you moving to NO..." post - wholly non sequitor to the parent and in fact counter to your obvious retorical intent. Were you talking about the termites example? That's the only 'construct' I created, I think. I wasn't discussion folks behaviour as they were at risk of life. I was discussing behaviour of government folks far removed from any risk - behaviour well in advance of any hurricane (uhm, years?) As far as Maslow Heirarchy of needs(1) goes, let's see, at the bottom are basic physical needs - food, water, air, etc. I can understand looting food from this context, but that's not what we were discussing.
Next it's Safety - gee, I think secure levies kinda falls under this heading, don't you? I suppose the Superdome was keeping the Saints safe from the elements but I think that is rather a stretch. I guess they skipped Security and Emotional connection and went straight to Esteem. They drowned but the City's collective self-esteem was wonderful? So, what exactly was your point besides taking the opportunity to snipe at the US, tell us you commanded folks in the Army and drop names?
(1) http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/maslow.html
not anytime soon...
If your goal was to provide ironic support to the parent, you've succeeded. What occurred in NO is from start to finish due to government incompetence on all levels - but weighted more towards the City and State. (How much did the stadium cost?) Predictably, the government-will fix-it solution failed miserably.
They failed to mitigate the risk to begin with and failed to effectively follow-up after the storm. The only outfits that performed rationally were various private companies that had plans and executed them. Like HCA or a few communications companies. HCA staged supplies, had a fleet of helos on order and removed their clients promptly from the hospital they operate - providing assistance to a couple nearby public hospitals - whose management had not planned effectively. While the city and state officials were standing around with their collective, uhm, appendages, in their hands.
Anyway, if an inspector tells you your house has termites, do you a) call an exterminator and fix the damaged wood or b) buy a new giant HDTV and get a Hummer (the vehicle - minds outa da gutter!) then call Dad and ask for help 'cause you're out of money? Guess which route NO and Louisiana took?
Sounds like:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -Arthur C. Clarke
To answer your question; the US (I assume your uhm, clever, rejoinder was describing the US) compares quite favorably to the PRC, thanks very much.
[shudder]
So..
(shaking rust off memory)They ran the power (heat) output of the core low. Over controled it below min levels, decreased water flow, cranked up the power by pulling some rods to get power up. Power ran up to high side, dropped some rods in, added water too quickly, cooled core too much, no steam output, turbines stall, tech panics and pulls ALL of the rods (big no-no, he forgot to RTFM), core temp climbs, water cannot be provided quickly enough (no power), water flashes off into steam, core over heats, ignites graphite - boom. More or less.
A nice feedback loop they they magnified causing increasing excursions with ever larger over corrections - doh! Current reactor designs use the working fluid ( or intermediate heat transfer fluid) as the moderator; the reaction cannot proceed with out the moderator being present to slow the neutrons. If the fluid drains out, the reaction halts and the reactor cools. If the reactor gets too hot, the moderator boils off, again halting the reaction. Kinda hard to get into a meltdown condition.
Exactly. I'm amazed the merchants for whom these bastards advertise have not been pursued for conspiracy or under RICO, since the spammers engage in illegal behaviour all the time. And their clients know it. Send a few of them away, and the revenue will dry up in no time. -me