Sophont

Google Groups: From: Alex Terrell (alexterrell@yahoo.com) Subject: Re: Water Well Drilling Accidents or near misses View this article only Newsgroups: sci.space.policy Date: 2004-07-30 02:38:26 PST rht@allweb.com (RH tOWNSEND) wrote in message news: ... > I am in litigation support. I have a project that I hope someone or > everyone on this list might be able to help me since you have > apparently been involved with water well drilling equipment or > involved in the industry. I am interested in any incident at anytime > since 1970 thru current. I am searching for those that were injured or > almost injured because of a falling or flying object. I am seeking > knowledge of incidents wherein injury has been suffered by anyone of a > water drilling crew member by a falling object even through to the > current time. I am also interested in reports of near misses as well. > Please feel free to call me at 1.800.308.7716 ext 4010. > > ...

CBC News : HAPPY VALLEY-GOOSE BAY - A woman from Labrador was in hospital on Tuesday, recovering from face and head injuries she suffered when a whale whacked her boat with its tail. On Sunday, Brenda Hancock was taking an evening cruise on Forteau Bay with her husband Regg and another couple when a whale surfaced, flipped its large black tail out of the water and struck the Hancocks' brand-new boat. The blow knocked out the windshield and struck Hancock on the head, causing minor injuries. No one else on board was injured. 'My wife has this terrific fear of whales and every time you go near a boat she is always talking about 'Don't go near whales,'' Regg Hancock says. 'I used to always laugh at that and say, 'There is no way a whale will come near a boat.' Well, she proved me wrong.' Brenda Hancock is recovering from her injuries at Charles S. Curtis Memorial Hospital in St. Anthony."

Radioactive Consumer Products : "For fun, I measured the radionuclide activities in one sample of cat litter. The results were as follows: 4 picocuries per gram (pCi/g) for members of the uranium series, 3 pCi/g for members of the thorium series, and 8 pCi/g of potassium-40. At these concentrations the exposure rate at six inches above a box of cat litter would be approximately 0.1 micro roentgen per hour (uR/hr) above background. Since cats don't spend a lot of time in the litter box (you never see them taking along something to read when they are heading that way), the radiation exposure is probably minimal. I've seen varying estimates of the amount of cat litter sold in the US, but for the sake of the calculation, lets assume 4 billion pounds per year. If true, this means that approximately 50,000 pounds of uranium and 120,000 pounds of thorium are purchased in the form of cat litter each year by the American consumer."

EFF: Deep Links : Turns out Woody Guthrie lifted the melody of 'This Land is Your Land' essentially note-for-note from 'When the World's on Fire,' a song recorded by country/bluegrass legends, The Carter Family, ten years before Guthrie wrote his classic song. Here's a short snippet (380k mp3) of the song (the song can be found on the box set, The Carter Family: 1927-34). You don't need to be a musicologist to hear what we're talking about. Now we've got nothing against Woody's borrowing. In fact, it's a part of the 'folk process' that Woody himself championed. I can't imagine that The Carter Family minded. But in the letter threatening copyright litigation over JibJab's animated political parody, 'This Land,' Ludlow's lawyer goes out of his way to attack JibJab for copying 'the entire melody, harmony, rhythm and structure of the [sic] Mr. Guthrie's song.' Er, sorry there Ludlow, but actually...

A Geen Legacy Of Death : In April 1972, after seven months of testimony, EPA Administrative Law Judge Edmund Sweeney stated that “DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man. ... The uses of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds, or other wildlife. ... The evidence in this proceeding supports the conclusion that there is a present need for the essential uses of DDT.”* Two months later, EPA head [and Environmental Defense Fund member/fundraiser] William Ruckelshaus - who had never attended a single day’s session in the seven months of EPA hearings, and who admittedly had not even read the transcript of the hearings - overturned Judge Sweeney’s decision. Ruckelshaus declared that DDT was a “potential human carcinogen” and banned it for virtually all uses.** Since Ruckelshaus arbitrarily and capriciously banned DDT, an estimated 12,836,229,417 cases of malaria have caused immense suffering and pover...

Telegraph : "Scientists investigating the health of guide dogs have made an alarming discovery: sometimes the blind are leading the blind. According to a new study, at least one in 10 working guide dogs is seriously short-sighted. Some of the so-called seeing dogs have such poor vision that they would be prescribed glasses if they were human, researchers found."

by Ted Turner ....Today, media companies are more concentrated than at any time over the past 40 years, thanks to a continual loosening of ownership rules by Washington. The media giants now own not only broadcast networks and local stations; they also own the cable companies that pipe in the signals of their competitors and the studios that produce most of the programming. To get a flavor of how consolidated the industry has become, consider this: In 1990, the major broadcast networks--ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox--fully or partially owned just 12.5 percent of the new series they aired. By 2000, it was 56.3 percent. Just two years later, it had surged to 77.5 percent. In this environment, most independent media firms either get gobbled up by one of the big companies or driven out of business altogether. Yet instead of balancing the rules to give independent broadcasters a fair chance in the market, Washington continues to tilt the playing field to favor the biggest players. Last summ...

SciScoop : by rickyjames on Fri Jul 9th, 2004 at 04:49:59 PM PST ....As for the whole subject of reboost, somewhere inside NASA is a very interesting videotape taken at the 1992 or 1993 Houston Critical Design Review that has me arguing with a VP-level guy at what was then McDonnell Douglas about Space Station reboost. I present some facts about the amount of water generated by the Shuttle fuel cells during station docking, and state my belief and calculations that plumbing that water over to space station for use as electric resistojet reboost mass makes a lot more sense than letting that water deorbit with the shuttle and ultimately get drained onto the runway at Kennedy after being launched to orbit at $10,000 per pound. I outlined a whole scenerio we (Boeing) had worked out where once every 90 days a large chunk of the station's power would be diverted to reboost for a few weeks using water as the reaction mass for resistojets. I then note that Macdac had just received a...

Nipple hugger jewelry system : A wire is fabricated of a semi-rigid material. The wire may be bent by a user. At least three primary sections are formed. A nipple reception circle is located between the primary sections. The circle has a center. Each primary section extends radially outwardly from the center of the circle. A pair of end sections are formed. Two stem sections extend radially from the circle. An interior point is formed. An exterior point is formed. The end sections and the stem sections are oriented in a common plane prior to use. The end and stem sections are movable to an orientation with the end sections overlapped into a locking relationship when the circle encompasses the nipple of a user. The interiors of the primary sections are in holding contact adjacent to at least three spaced points around the nipple of the user. Claims: 1. A nipple hugger jewelry system for adorning a breast of a user in a non-piercing manner comprising, in combination: ...

Political Aims by Amy Elizabeth Sullivan : "Last night I hung out with some former Daschle office friends who are heading up the office of newly elected Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth and -- knowing of my interest in all things related to religion and politics -- they told me about their new governor's strategy for dealing with the drought that plagued South Dakota this past spring. Republican Governor Mike Rounds put together a task force to deal with drought-related problems, tasked state agencies to develop solutions, and proclaimed a state-wide day of prayer for rain. Yep, you read that correctly. As a solution to ending the drought, the governor asked everyone in the state to pray for rain. And apparently they were just a little too good at it. It did in fact start raining on May 23, the day of prayer. And it didn't stop for fourteen days. The ground was so parched that it couldn't handle all of the water, many areas in the state flooded, and they had to ca...

My Way News : "The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has endorsed a plan to distribute about 6,000 special DVD players to members. Specially encrypted discs, known as screeners, would be earmarked for a specific academy voter and would play only on that person's machine. 'It's extremely impressive,' said academy President Frank Pierson. 'It certainly looked foolproof to us.' The player also would imprint an invisible watermark on the disc each time it is viewed. In addition, if someone uses a camcorder to tape the movie as it is playing on a monitor, that image would contain information on the person assigned the machine."

dailyrecord : "STAR Trek actor James Doohan, who played engineer Scotty, has Alzheimer's disease. The 84-year-old Canadian actor's family have revealed the progress of his dementia means he will have to retire from public life. Despite a history of ill health, including Parkinson's disease and diabetes, he was still a regular fixture on the Star Trek convention circuit until recently. And four years ago, he became a father for the seventh time with the birth of his daughter Sarah. Doohan's wife Wende, 47, said yesterday: 'It is hard for him to do interviews because the more he starts searching for the words, the more frustrated he gets. 'With Jimmy, it's mostly the loss of words. He still recognises everybody. And there are times when he is sharp as a tack. 'But with any type of memory loss like this, it's the older memories that stick. The more recent ones are harder.' A tribute to the actor a veteran of D-Day with the Royal Canadian...

cleveland.com : "'Dean has gone to the Dark Side,' Mason said. 'Most of the lawyers who leave this office go to large firms or into private practice where they make a lot of money. They don't usually go out to become expert witnesses in child-porn cases.' To Mason's regret, Boland 'has created a cottage industry as a kiddie-porn expert,' he said. 'God bless the entrepreneur, but now his work is starting to affect law and order.' Boland has teamed with criminal defense lawyers who are exploiting a provision of Ohio law that says to obtain a conviction, a prosecutor must prove that a digital portrait of suspected child pornography is, in fact, a picture of a child. To meet that requirement, the image must be authenticated as a child and not an adult digitally enhanced to look like a child - an extremely difficult level of proof for police and prosecutors, Boland says. Without the evidence to refute Boland's testimony and prove aut...