City Officials Almost Ban Foam Cups 1055
localhost00 writes "The city of Aliso Viejo, CA nearly banned foam cups when they learned they are produced from a substance known as 'dihydrogen monoxide.' A paralegal working for the city apparantly found a professionally designed web site put up to describe the dangerous properties of this chemical.
Apparantly, the report about Dihydrogen Monoxide was written by a then 14-year-old Nathan Zohner who was researching the gullibility of fifty ninth graders."
Why does this surprise me it is in California? (Score:4, Interesting)
Hmm... I've got an idea! (Score:1, Interesting)
Just a wild idea!
Re:Dihydrogen Monoxide *is* dangerous (Score:4, Interesting)
Took them long enough (Score:3, Interesting)
Ban (Score:3, Interesting)
But, Seriouslly, they really should ban styrofoam cups, those things take forever to degrade, and are nasty pollutants. USe paper cups instead!
Re:They SHOULD ban styrofoam (Score:5, Interesting)
But on the bright side, you can dissolve styrofoam in gasoline (or other hydrocarbons). When you add enough, the solution becomes viscous and sticky (just like honey). If you love the smell of napalm in the morning, styrofoam is your friend. :)
I sware to you, A long time ago. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:You know they forgot... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:You know they forgot... (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course they're scams / humor sites, but they look really real!
I'm somewhat surprised by these, too. I believe they're encouraging people to commit a felony (identity theft), as well as fraud (not paying debts). I believe this may mean they are engaging in a criminal conspiracy, even if they don't know the other parties to the conspiracy. IANAL, someone please review and respond?
Here's some links:
Penn and Teller did a simaliar trick (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Come on CA (Score:5, Interesting)
and a PhD on the city council (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Come on CA (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not worried about honest mistakes, but unhonest exploitation of the gullible does worry me. Legal professionals (the wealthy ones) understand all too well how to exaggerate the truth and worse, how to sugar-coat a lie.
Honest mistakes are forgivable. But, exaggeration on the other hand, well I'm not so sure about that.
Re:Scientifically illiterate population (Score:3, Interesting)
On a sidenote, my little sister is nearly finished with her MBA, and she hates math, science and computers. There have been times I wanted to give her an Etch-A-Sketch as a laptop...especially when she calls me on my vacation all upset because she caught the latest windows virus. What could I do? Nothing... Why? 1) I'm a UNIX engineer 2) I was driving into the Rockies in Colorado for a nice quiet peaceful weekend in a mountain cabin, and of course she's in Ohio. Anyway to the point... My little sis would go out of her way to make sure she didn't have to take science or math courses in college. She wanted to be a marketing major for her undergraduate degree, but chose public relations instead since it didn't have a requirement for Calc I.
Re:Dihydrogen Monoxide *is* dangerous (Score:5, Interesting)
Legal ecstasy tablets probably would include an information sheet detailing safe usage practicesm and this would never have happened. However, the government, breweries and the tobacco companies all would prefer for you to believe that she was killed by a tab of ecstasy.
Re:They SHOULD ban styrofoam (Score:3, Interesting)
Paper Good! Plastic Bad!...
Re:Come on CA (Score:4, Interesting)
CA environmental stuff is wayyyy over the top (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyway the inspectors came around to check them out; and insisted on knowing what their cleanup method would be if they spilled the stuff.
"We don't need one."
At this point the inspector went into rant mode, threatening extensive punitive penalties if a cleanup methodology wasn't produced immediately.
(Indeed so effective was the desert at catalysing the peroxide, the team were jokingly considering abandoning their expensive silver catalysts, and using desert instead... but I digress.)
Re:Why does this surprise me it is in California? (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, oxygen isn't flammable. Was that supposed to be part of the humorous part, too, or did it really say that?
Re:Come on CA (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't believe me? Well, I've got this wheelbarrow of plants for you to eat...
Our education is responsible for this, not designs (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a consequence, not the cause. The problem is our education system and the way it encourages stupidity. Read about that and the solution to it in th
Montessori Method. It's old and, sadly, is the sort of stuff nobody teaches children any more.
Re:hyponatremia (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:They SHOULD ban styrofoam (Score:3, Interesting)
Technical versus social skills (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:You know they forgot... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:They SHOULD ban styrofoam (Score:5, Interesting)
We used to do this in the boy scouts. We'd then pour/mold the mixture onto a newspaper, twist the newspaper around the stuff, and make a "starter log" for camping. Make 'em two or three inches thick, throw a couple into your fire pit, and you've got a great way to start a fire. Very good for drying out damp wood and getting a blaze going.
Re:A sad example of our times (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure one can blame education or general intelligence for this -- at least not directly.
What we may have lost is the ability to detect bullshit. The tendency seems to be for adults to accept official looking information presented in an expected manner, or to believe statements from someone holding a microphone in front of a video camera.
I say "adults" only because I've seen a few "man on the street" spoofs where adults are caught up while their children look on in disbelief just before calling bullshit on the so-called interviewer. Some of Rick Mercer's [www.cbc.ca] "Talking to Americans" segments are particularly memorable examples.
Of course, this is completely anecdotal on my part. Not to mention some of the folks who got caught on this particular hoax were young adults. Adult enough, perhaps, to start believing what "experts" suggest to them without thinking critically about what is being presented to them.
The problem is a lack of critical thinking, I suggest, and not some arbitary level of intelligence (which is impossible to measure and compare, anyway).
Examples about making change or spelling may be a bit misleading. I've never been strong with arithmetic (not mathematics) even though I worked for years in the service industry. I never learned the tricks and shortcuts people use to quickly calculate change or percentages. I'm not sure there is much my schooling could have provided to help this. After 35 years I just know I should use a calculator, and check my figures twice.
Many people find spelling problematic. Especially English spelling, which is hardly a normalized language; being a good English speller requires a fair amount of sheer memorization. In fact, new research suggests that some so-called learning disabilities have almost nothing to do with intelligence or ability to learn. Dyslexics have different brains that may actually be better at some tasks than non-dyslexic brains. Dyslexics can read and comprehend letters and words the same as everyone else, but the part of the brain the recognizes words shapes and establishes a lexicon "buffer" is the problem.
Re:Come on CA (Score:4, Interesting)
Did you consider that the paralegal could've been the patsy [reference.com] to save face for the elected official ?
Re:You know they forgot... (Score:3, Interesting)
-N
Re:Come on CA (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Come on CA (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Come on CA (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Come on CA (Score:4, Interesting)
You're assuming consumption is by inhalation; by ingestion, especially in concentrated form (hashish or THC tablets), it is surely possible.
Just as it is difficult to achieve alcohol poisoning when drinking normally because of the same self-limiting effects (although it is possible), it is also possible to chug a litre of pure ethanol and likely induce death.
Re:Come on CA (Score:2, Interesting)
Great exagerators:
Mark Twain
Hunter S. Thompson
Homer
To name 3 without thinking too hard. If you don't appreciate exageration you can throw away all of your library for that matter. What is fiction but an exageration?
Why without Exageration and Lying there would be no Sci Fi! No Sci Fi! Good God
Re:Come on CA (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:You know they forgot... (Score:3, Interesting)
I do make an exception for the tapwater at work, however. It's an old building with terrible pipes because it's had biochemistry experiments being conducted in it for over a century - with all manner of corrosive compounds being used. I insist that my tapwater at least *look* clear before I drink it. The tapwater at work often comes out yellowish, with chunks of stuff in it.
No, I'm not kidding. You can also see brown stains on all the drinking fountains' porcelin where the water regularly runs, and all the pipes I can see when the ceiling tiles are pulled aside are covered in crusty green stuff.
Re:Come on CA (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, while they're distracting us with that "stupid thing", they're also expanded the death penalty to include people who put Linux on their X-Box.
Re:Come on CA (Score:3, Interesting)
"The measure has been pulled from the agenda, although Norman said the city may still eventually ban foam cups."
So someone decided styrofoam cups were bad, went out looking for supporting evidence, and was unable analyze the data he found. Since this got as far as it did, it is clearly someone with the ear of a councilman.
Who is pursuing this agenda, and what other causes are they pushing, possibly with equally flawed evidence
Re:Come on CA (Score:4, Interesting)
hahahaha, heehehehehehe, hahaha, there's a tree, hee hee hee, CRASH!
you get the idea.
Yes, I get the idea that you're probably one of the ones that shouldn't be smoking pot. You know, in about 18 years of smoking the stuff and being around people who do, I have never met ONE person that would behave like your described scenario. The dumb-ass giggly shtick, I always took that to be a hollywood fabrication. "Reefer Madness" and its influence springs to mind. But I guess some people just can't handle mind-altering substances.
I recall hearing about a study that tested (in simulators) driving abilities of straight, stoned, and drunk people. Guess what? The stoners tended to be the more careful, better drivers. Part of that I think is that when you're high, you know you're high, you know you need to compensate for attention-span etc. When your piss-drunk, you tend to forget that you're drunk, and figure being a complete idiot is just normal behavior.
I got 150 on an IQ test right after sucking down a huge bowl of weed. I would never have been able to do that while drunk.
Re:Come on CA (Score:3, Interesting)
Apparently it was so much that he caused his stomach to burst. Therefor the death was marijuana related, however it was really just death by eating too much. The THC probably just made the whole death thing slightly more bearable, but it's not what killed him.
Re:Even for non-runners (Score:1, Interesting)
Unfortunately, the de facto solution to someone collapsing from a supposed heat induced injury is to stick them with an IV bag. He died shortly after.
The week after this happened we all started getting a couple canteen cups of gatorade a day.
Oxygen kills (no really) (Score:2, Interesting)
Apparently 95% of life on earth during the early period of plants was wiped out. They were mostly anerobic bacteria.
In fact oxygen is pretty nasty in aerobic organisms too, especially in the form of superoxides.
Re:Come on CA (Score:1, Interesting)
I actually saw something like this a few months ago on TV. A group went to a "Green Rally" (Hug the trees, save the snails,
After they signed they would say "Thank you for your help in banning water" and poeple then tried to leave as soon as possible!
Re:You know they forgot one more (Score:3, Interesting)
eg: "2nd Place: "Women Were Designed For Homemaking"
Jonathan Goode (grade 7) applied findings from many fields of science to support his conclusion that God designed women for homemaking: physics shows that women have a lower center of gravity than men, making them more suited to carrying groceries and laundry baskets; biology shows that women were designed to carry un-born babies in their wombs and to feed born babies milk, making them the natural choice for child rearing; social sciences show that the wages for women workers are lower than for normal workers, meaning that they are unable to work as well and thus earn equal pay; and exegetics shows that God created Eve as a companion for Adam, not as a co-worker."
Re:Come on CA (Score:3, Interesting)
They're also edible obviously, though they don't have much taste. It's fun to open a package that just arrived by UPS in front of your co-workers and start snacking on the "styrofoam" peanuts. All you have to do is keep a straight face while doing it, and when they look back at you in pure horror, just innocently say, "What? Oh, sorry. Want some?"