BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: Ebbie
Date: 08 Sep 05 - 05:24 PM

OK, Wolfgang, I need some translation- I'm not as erudite as you.

"epidemy"?
"genetic wengineering experiment" ?
"SETI efforts"?
"strangelet"?

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: SINSULL
Date: 08 Sep 05 - 06:23 PM

I thought the Seti was an Abominable Snowman.

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Sep 05 - 06:45 PM

A Seti is a Yeti who has become a couch potato.

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Sep 05 - 06:47 PM

I thought a seti was a small couch, something like a love seat.

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Sep 05 - 06:51 PM

Ok, but I couldn't help it.
SETI =Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Take a look at seti.org

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: bobad
Date: 08 Sep 05 - 06:55 PM

SETI = Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: bobad
Date: 08 Sep 05 - 06:57 PM

Oops missed that one - was fixing a scotch and soda.

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Sep 05 - 07:06 PM

Try google, ebbie.
...........................

True enough there are some imaginary disasters where it's not worth worrying about, because there's nothing you can do about them, or because they really are very improbable.

Hurricanes in the Caribbean or tsunamis on the shores of large oceans which contain or are bordered by tectoniacally actuve areas aren't likem that, because neither of those conditiosn apply. They are not in fact improbable, but inevitable and to a considerable extent predictable There are plenty of things that can be done to reduce loss of life, if adequate warnimng systems are in place and populations and their rulers have learnt how to behave when they do get the warning.

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: Ebbie
Date: 08 Sep 05 - 07:07 PM

Well done! So how about 'strangelet'? And is 'epidemy' meant to be 'epidemic'?

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: tarheel
Date: 08 Sep 05 - 07:15 PM

I GIVE UP,WHERE????

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: pdq
Date: 08 Sep 05 - 07:39 PM

SINSULL...

You mentioned "defective equipment in India...wiped out a whole town."

That must refer to the Bhopol, India disaster that claimed 3828 lives back in 1984. Time blurs all memory, but what happened was not an accident. Scientific and engineering teams studied the equipment and...

"...concluded that the gas leak could only have been caused by deliberate sabotage; someone intentionally connected a water hose to the gas storage tank, causing a massive chemical reaction."

Just trying to set the record straight. Also, despite being blameless, Union Carbide, a subsidiary of Dow Chemical, paid nearly 1/2 billion dollars in compensation.

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: Ebbie
Date: 08 Sep 05 - 07:53 PM

tarheel, that one wasn't funny the first time.

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: pdq
Date: 08 Sep 05 - 07:58 PM

I'll bite. Where is Steve Earl playing tonight?

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Sep 05 - 08:10 PM

Epidemy- An epidemic disease, esp. the plague. OED. It is a valid word, but classed as obsolete.
Couldn't find stangelet, but it sounds good; say it often enough and it will acquire meaning and a place in the dictionary.

Continuing an exhausted thread, I am reminded of something I heard in Holland from Dutchmen speaking 'English.' "I'm going to douche" means that they are going to take a shower.

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: Peace
Date: 09 Sep 05 - 12:13 AM

"So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?"

Your next disaster hit in 2004: Federal Election. And the result of that election is STILL hitting.

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Sep 05 - 12:16 AM

already hit..... this forum http://www.mudcatfalls.com/

maybe here in Mudcat Falls

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 09 Sep 05 - 06:07 AM

Strangelet

The fear is that in one of the physics labs a strangelet might be generated which could change all the matter on earth very very quickly.

When I read the article about possible disasters they were classified along two axes, one the probability of occurence, and the other the seriousness of the consequences ("disastrity" to make up a word).
The strangelet scenario was highest on "disastrity" and lowest on probability of occurence.

"wengineering" is a typo.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: freda underhill
Date: 09 Sep 05 - 06:23 AM

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 09 Sep 05 - 08:17 PM

PDQ,
Bhopal was an accident. A totally avoidable one, as the plant had been built with saftey equipment, which was not working at the time of the accident, and operating procedure was very sloppy.

The mass casulties resulted from the large amount(~50 tons) of MIC on site, and the town built right up to the plant fence.

It and Cheynobyl are the two biggist examples chemical and process engineers avoid. In neither case was the plant or operating procedures up to western standards at the time. Cock-up rather than conspiricy.

My guess on the next major diaster is a very large earthquke (8.0+) in a densley populted area.

Someone else who saw this one coming....


The Dykes, Rudyard Kipling.
1902

We have no heart for the fishing – we have no hand for the oar –
All that our fathers taught us of old pleases us no more.
All that our own hearts bid us believe we doubt where we do not deny –
There is nor proof in the bread we eat nor rest in the toil we ply.

Look you, our foreshore stretches far through sea-gate, dyke and groin –
Made land all, that our fathers made, where the flats and the fairway join.
They forced the sea a sea-league back. They died, and their work stood fast.
We were born to peace in the lee of the dykes, but the time of our peace is past.

Far off, the full tide clambers and slips, mouthing and resting all,
Nipping the flanks of the water-gates, baying along the wall;
Turning the shingle, returning the shingle, changing the set of the sand…
We are too far from the beach, men say, to know how the outwarks stand.

So we come down, uneasy, to look; uneasily pacing the beach.
These are the dykes our fathers made: we have never known a breach.
Time and again has the gale blown by and we were not afraid;
Now we come only to look at the dykes – at the dykes our fathers made.

O'er the marsh where the homesteads cower apart the harried sunlight flies,
Shifts and considers, wanes and recovers, scatters and sickness and dies –
An evil ember bedded in ash – a spark blown west by wind …
We are surrendered to night and the sea – the gale and the tide behind!

At the bridge of the lower saltings the cattle gather and blare,
Roused by the feet of running men, dazed by the lantern-glare.
Unbar and let them away for their lives – the levels drown as they stand,
Where the flood-wash forces the sluices aback and the ditches deliver inland.

Ninefold deep to the top of the dykes the galloping breakers stride,
And their overcarried spray is a sea – a sea of the landward side.
Coming, like stallions they paw with their hooves, going they snatch with their teeth,
Till the bents and the furze and the sand are dragged out, and the old-time hurdles are beneath.

Bid men gather fuel for fire, the tar, the oil and tow –
Flame we shall need, not smoke, in the dark if the riddled sea-banks go.
Bid the ringers watch in the tower (who know how the dawn shall prove?)
Each with his rope between his feet and the trembling bells above.

Now we can only wait till the day, wait and apportion our shame.
These are the dykes our fathers left, but we would not look to the same.
Time and again were we warned of the dykes, time and again we delayed.
Now, it may fall, we have slain our sons, as our fathers we have betrayed.

.        .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .

Walking along the wreck of the dykes, watching the works of the sea!
These were the dykes our fathers made to our great profit and ease.
But the peace is gone and the profit is gone, with the old sure days withdrawn …
That our own houses show as strange when we come back in the dawn

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: GUEST,Bobert
Date: 09 Sep 05 - 08:39 PM

YER DANGED CHECKBOOK, that's where...

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: pdq
Date: 09 Sep 05 - 08:47 PM

Bunnahabhain,

The Bhopal tragedy WAS NOT AN ACCIDENT! Employees intentionally hooked up a water line to the MIC tank. It was not something that could have been done by accidentally turning the wrong valve.

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Sep 05 - 06:49 AM

The explanation put out by Union Carbide in their efforts to minimise their own responsibility for the Bhopal disaster is highly suspect. Even if the story about sabotage was true - which is very questionable - it could only have caused a disaster like that because of massive failures on the part of the company to take elementary safety precautions.

Money talks.

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Sep 05 - 09:14 AM

Here's a link to the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal - and just to play fair, here's the site set up by Union Carbide, rather disengenuously called the Bhopal Information Centre.

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: pdq
Date: 10 Sep 05 - 11:59 AM

A Blind Spot for Bad Guys

by Peter M. Sandman


Posted: June 15, 2005

The most serious industrial accident in history — some 2,000 dead, up to 300,000 injured — probably wasn't an accident. There is no definitive proof the December 1984 Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal, India, was caused by sabotage; certainly no disaffected employee has ever been charged with the crime. But as the company argued for years, what happened at Carbide's factory was either a really weird confluence of independent human errors and equipment malfunctions (and maybe some money-saving corner-cutting) or pretty much what a well-trained worker would do if s/he wanted to ruin a batch of methyl isocyanate in the most dramatic fashion possible. In logic, the likeliest explanation is the one that requires the fewest assumptions, and in the case of Bhopal that's sabotage.

Whatever the truth about Bhopal, what's interesting is the nearly universal rejection of Carbide's sabotage hypothesis. A Google search today for "Bhopal Carbide accident" yields 41,100 hits, compared to only 18,200 for "Bhopal Carbide sabotage." From the outset, journalists and the public found two scenarios believable: that Bhopal was simply an accident or that it was a stunning example of corporate malfeasance. Nobody did it or Carbide did it. The possibility that a bad guy did it ran a very distant third.

Of course Union Carbide's management didn't help matters by implying that if an angry employee or former employee was responsible, then the company wasn't — as if companies were under no particular obligation to keep their factories from being used as weapons of mass destruction. Since Carbide seemed to think that sabotage would let the company off the hook, activists (and plaintiffs' attorneys) felt obliged to say it couldn't possibly be sabotage. And just about everybody found that easy to accept.

When Outrage Is a Hazard

It isn't just activists, journalists, and the public that tend to ignore the bad guy scenario. Companies do too. In my presentations to corporate environment, health, and safety (EH&S) groups, I often ask how many people have heard that the Bhopal disaster might have been sabotage. I get a smattering of hands. And when I ask what priority EH&S management is giving to sabotage prevention, I get mostly blank stares. In 1995 I published a short article on this topic in The Synergist, the monthly journal of the American Industrial...



               more here

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Sep 05 - 08:30 PM

As I said, even if it had been sabotage, that would still indicate grossly inadequate safety standard by Union Carbide. And I see Sandman specifically says that as well.

And in today's world especially that kind of incompetant management in a company which has the lives of tens of thousands of people in the palm of its hands is terrifying.

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: Peace
Date: 10 Sep 05 - 08:34 PM

I think it was in either 1965 or 1966 that a nuclear plant near Detroit almost went. "We Almost Lost Detroit" was the title of the book written about it. Read it many years ago. Can't recall the author.

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Sep 05 - 11:02 PM

"We Almost Lost Detroit by J.G Fuller (Reader's Digest Press, $8.95) is a landmark in the history of yellow journalism. The title refers to an incident at the experimental Fermi I breeder reactor in 1966, and though this is not the only subject of the book, it should do as a sample of Fuller's reporting, for the facts are very simple: On October 5, 1966, a metal plate broke loose in the reactor, partially blocking the flow of coolant to two (yes, two!) out of the 100 fuel rods; the two rods overheated and some of their fuel melted. The reactor was promptly shut down and all safety systems worked as planned. No significant radiation escaped the steel vessel, let alone the containment building, let alone making the 30 miles to Detroit, let alone harming a Detroit fly. The reactor was later rebuilt and resumed operation.

"That is how we almost lost Detroit. (As in all "incidents," a wealth of public documents is available. For details, write AIF, 7101 Wisconsin Ave. Wash., DC 20014. See also "Why we didn't almost lose Detroit," Detroit Engineer, Dec. 1975).

"There is nothing in the book that would make the reader suspect what the simple truth about Fermi I was. Far from explaining that the very first line of defense worked in Fermi's system of defense in depth, or that a disaster was improbable even if all of the core had melted, Fuller tries to make out that a nuclear plant requires infallible people and perfect technology. But his main weapon is "the truth, but not the whole truth, "and to paraphrase his method, one might state that "ever since he wrote his book, Mr. Fuller has not raped a single woman, at least not in broad daylight."

More

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: Peace
Date: 10 Sep 05 - 11:09 PM

Good to know. Thank you.

Three Mile Island, however . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: GUEST,DB
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 05:09 AM

Keep cramming people onto the face of the Earth and every disaster is likely to be a major one (huge loss of life).

Keep tinkering with the atmosphere and biosphere and you create avoidable, man-made disasters to go with the unavoidable natural ones.

Keep putting psychopathic pricks, with insane agendas, in charge of things and disasters become catastrophes.

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 01:36 AM

Just to inject a note of possible man-made disaster, the Washington Post today was reporting that the Pentagon, in response to White House policies and requests, is rewriting the "we won't use nukes first" policy of the United States. Big George wants to use 'em in "preventive strikes."

I really, really, really disagree with this...to say the least.

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 09:11 AM

A Google search today for "Bhopal Carbide accident" yields 41,100 hits, compared to only 18,200 for "Bhopal Carbide sabotage."

Not convincing. One gets even more hits with replacing 'accident' by 'disaster'. A specific theory about the cause of something is to be expected to be mentioned on fewer sites than those that are only descriptive. You'd get a similar result with introducing 'maintenance' (another possible cause) into the search.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 01:46 PM

I have to state that my prediction was wrong. It looks like the Gulf Coast ( Texas, this time) gets it.

I give full credit to CarolC on this one...


"CarolC - PM
Date: 05 Sep 05 - 04:01 PM

This hurricane season has been projected to be one of the worst in history. So it's entirely conceivable that the next disaster could very well occur somewhere on the Gulf coast (Gulf of Mexico) or the Atlantic coast of the US. And it could happen next week, or the week after, or the month after that.

And we could very well see a repeat of what happened last year where the same areas kept getting hit over and over again. "

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 05:02 PM

Well done Carol C , and maybe bird-brain Bush and his gas guzzlers will take World warming more serious at the next meeting of World leaders.

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 06:33 PM

For the USA, the best disaster preparation will be ensuring that the next presidential election result isn't as disastrous as the last one.

It's even worse for the UK, as there is no limit on the number of terms of office our fool can attain.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: SINSULL
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 07:10 PM

Though not a fan of the current administration, I don't believe that Kerry would have done much better avoiding the disaster in New Orleans. Too many years of complacency and neglect. Whether or not he would have overseen a faster response...who knows? The point in starting this thread was to uncover other disasters in the making that are being treated as "the sky is falling" rather than "Let's get a handle on this."
I almost pity Bush on this next one. The government is already mobilizing to get relief to the next possible disaster area - Texas. For sure Bush will be criticized for taking care of his buddies while leaving LA to drown. He is in a "no win" position.

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: pdq
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 07:16 PM

"He is in a 'no win' position."

Sadly, that is what being president of the United States has come down to.

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 01:47 AM

YOU AMERICANS WILL ELECT ANOTHER PRESIDENT LIKE THE ONE YOU HAVE GOT

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 05:38 AM

F

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 05:39 AM

For ever and ever Amen.

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 03:39 PM

Re:   SETI.

". . . and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space,
'Cause there's bugger-all down here on Earth!"
                                       --from The Galaxy Song by Eric Idle

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: So Where will The Next Disaster Hit?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Sep 05 - 03:33 AM

La. is number one state regarding Army Corp of Engineers federal funding-if you are unaware we are a republic based on preservation of state rights; big daddy federal gov can only do so much and should not mandate how monies are spent in localities. La. and N'orleans has a tradition of corrupt politics(more than the norm)and it's faulty levee system, poverty, and crime rate is directly related to decades of liberal rule. Bush certainly, like all presidents, has had an imperfect presidency, but the blame Bush for everything crowd gets tiresome and is rooted in hysterics and ideological hatred. Many on the left blame global warming created by evil capitalist man and of course W-May I present the fact the polar ice caps on Mars are receding at a rate of ten feet per year. The last time I checked Mars was void of industry-Perhaps, just maybe, warming and cooling trends are cyclically influenced by things like the sun, volcanic activity, ect.. What a concept.
Also, in the last hundred years the peak decades for hurricanes were the 30's, 40's and 50's-why the drop-off in the 60's through the 90's? I could go on and on, but your sure to maintain simplistically non-analytical thought anyway