Jasmin

Don't feed the troll...although its amazing everybody's lasted this long! xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

Mneh. We've got public and private health care. The previous govt got around objections to private health insurance by taxing people at a higher rate (above a certain pay grade) if they didn't take out private health insurance. However, our new government has set the pay setpoint much higher now, so most people have the choice of going private or public without the added consideration of being penalised at tax time if they didn't. Our public system isn't great, but its nothing as bad as this report is saying! I've got private insurance, but if I'm a 'private' patient in a public hospital, the only benefit is the added newspaper I get and an extra $2k bill. So unless its elective surgery, I go public system as a public patient. xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

Yeah - I always thought it was my ex-wife. LOL Believe it or not, I didn't see that line coming, you had me in stitches xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

Its bigger than that, they've brought about whole new (sub)fields in physics just to make it happen, let alone new vocabulary! The cryogenics system is unbelievable (Nice one Michel!) and means that the LHC can and will be the coldest place in the universe. Its all pretty mind blowing stuff even if you're a geek and the scale is completely unprecedented. (As you might be able to tell, I had an awesome time at CERN). xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

Science has long been constrained by Society's (in)ability to keep up.... Anyway, on behalf of my inner geek, here's a few pics of some of the LHC segments before installation, the CMS detector end piece before it was lowered and a stock shot of a part of the LHC's 27km circumference ring, 100m underground. xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

LOL Love the response of 'scholarlymama' ie if you don't like what comes with the territory, get out of the territory. While fending off physical advances is a legitimate grievance, (ie if the 'look but don't touch' rule is good enough for strippers, she's well within her rights to expect at least that much as a waitress!) the gawking is a response to the uniform she gets paid to wear. But I must admit the comment about "being born with a beautiful body" had me in stitches....what are fat people born with? xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

Given that TCN9 have twice ripped off footage without permission (the infamous Slim at Garie beach incident, and my cut of Stoopid BASE- which the Producer was told she didn't have permission ot use) my money is actually on permission having not been obtained. xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

In terms of quality of life, I'd pick here over the US any day of the week. Free medical care is just one tiny aspect of it. We also have decent social security, so if you don't have a job/are injured/made redundant, you still get financial assistance (and there's no capped timeline on it) and more to the point, you and your entire family still get medical care. So to bring it back to the original thread, you would never see a case of a woman being turned away from treatment and the use of a rape kit (or not having it done for fear of the cost) in Australia because it'd be automatically covered by the Govt. And you've got to admit that not all US employers provide (full) health cover, particularly once you start factoring in 'casuals' etc so you're fine in the US as long as you're not in an unskilled position or unemployed. I'd still rather pay slightly higher taxes and know that there's a medical and financial safety net if anything ever happens to me or my job; but that's just my $0.02! xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

Ok! [Preparing to wade into semantics arguement!] There is a fundamental difference: one is a collection of evidence for the purposes of assisting police, the other is a medical treatment. Your analogy would hold if we were comparing a woman requiring stitches due to a violent rape (not to mention therapy) and your friend who needed hip reconstruction due to assault. But we're not. A rape kit does not treat you, it is for forensic purposes and if the victim is made to pay for this, she is essentially paying for police evidence gathering. If you want an analogy, its the equivalent of billing a person's estate for their autopsy if they're murdered. For women without insurance or without $1.5-2K to spare, it also makes them less likely to report rape. Again, this doesn't really hold true for the analogy you gave. If a society is serious about stopping crime, then it establishes and maintains investigative and enforcement bodies (ie courts, prisons, police, morgues, forensics etc) and more to the point, publicly funds them!! I'd like to say this surpirses me, but it doesn't. It just me makes me even more glad I live in Australia, where health cover and rape kits are free (ie included in your taxes). xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

how can medical care be free? someone has to pay for it. Yeah technically you're right, we aussies pay taxes and in return we don't have to pay (individually) for health care unless we choose to take out private health insurance and have the choice of being a private or publicly funded patient. But then, you guys pay taxes and then you have to pay for your health care (individually) on top of that. So I guess what squeak was trying to say is that both Americans and Australians pay taxes, but here in Australia you get your health cover thrown in for no extra cost. xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

I stand by my comments: there is a very big difference between can and will. The statistics are for reactor-grade Pu, but most use U. Then there's the variances added by method of exposure, ie inhalation vs ingestion vs epithelial exposure. Add in dispersion. But for semantics sake, even with the quoted inhalation statistics, its a can, not a will. I'm not disputing that radiation can kill, but so can (and does!) 9V batteries, forks put in toasters and hook turns. This is quickly and understandably becoming an emotive debate about reactors that I have a short fuse in responding to. So in the name of civility towards my fellow man/woman, that's it from me for this thread, flame away. Edited to add: ps What's with the Curies Kallend, I know Americans love old-style units and imperial, but the Si-officiated Becquerel is so much neater! xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

Wrong. Fission is a naturally occurring process a-la the Gabon natural reactor. Fissile and radioactive material predates mankind, so by quoting 1941 you're only off by a factor of (literally) a few billion years. Wrong. I do not suggest attempting to argue this with a medical physicist (and there's a few on here). Its pretty rare for me to say this to anyone in these forums, but you are plain and simply wrong. Edited to: correct spelling. (Forgive me, but I prefer the GB version of English!) xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

At one time the number was around the 20k mark, if you clicked on the Bulletin link I posted earlier, the number of active/deployed and inactive/responsive combined is roughly 10,000. The much-argued RRW project (see the very amusing LANL blog for the extent of the debate) among others was supposed to be helping to cut the numbers roughly in half. xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

I don't dispute that, but those that want to make the "ultimate" mess don't want a "dirty bomb" they want Hiroshima. China didn't steal our technology so they could have an arsenal of dirty bombs. They did it so they have an arsenal of sufficient deterrent to cause maximum damage. Those are finely tuned devices. The plutonium core is useless without the thousands of components that will force its reaction. Dirty bomb? Save time and access a medical physics department.... Now, back to our semantics argument I have no problem with the assertion that a lump of Pu or U is relatively useless by itself. But I think we're both aware that they're not stored as an unenriched lump. So the part I'm grilling you over is the lack of logic in asserting that such items are useless without American military peripherals. Not everyone needs "a manual" in order to do something interesting with enriched material...If they did, IAEA inspections (and counter-proliferation efforts) would merely need to focus on auditing files, not facilities! So, going back to my point in mentioning the Japanese criticality incident; if two technicians can accidentally achieve critical mass with a bucket, the real nightmare is knowing that the wrong knowledgable person (A Q Khan) started out with a lump and some borrowed paperwork on centrifuges and built a successful program from these small beginnings; now imagine what his ilk could do with a bomb (ie geometry handed to them on a platter) merely missing the casing, codes and manuals. Edited to add: And on that note, goodnight gentlemen! xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

Seriously. What drugs are you on? I'll grant you missiles and other delivery devices (eg aircraft) are worth a notable mention. But someone worth their salt can make a bloody big mess out of a few kg of the right material without needing to resort to playing with the peripherals. Heck, two Japanese civillians managed to do so with a bucket, a container and enough concentrate solution they inadvertantly achieved critical mass. (How many people can say they've seen Cerenkov in their eyeballs?) But that's just my $0.02 worth.... xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

According to Wikipedia (ok, laugh all you want but it's close enough for this estimate) there are 4,075 active and a number of (I assume) inactive nukes that brings the total up to 5,535. Myeh, try doubling it. I prefer the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist over Wikipedia for reliability on numbers....5163 active/deployed, almost as many responsive/inactive. http://thebulletin.metapress.com/content/3605g0m20h18877w/fulltext.pdf xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

AF loses classified material...again. Doesn't realise it until the recipient gives them a heads up...again. Main difference being that the recipient was Taiwan. http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2008/03/airforce_loosenukes_032508/ xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

Lulu might've won an award for bravery, but she still looks awfully like dinner to me! (We're the only country that eats both of the animals on its coat of arms!) xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

What's wrong with it? Nothing... its more a question of effectiveness... ie Suitable detector for specific emitters and ignoring the possibility of effective shielding. edited to add: Would've loved to have seen that cops face when the cat-carrying-car went past! xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

hee hee hee I miss that show and Full Frontal (with Eric Bana & Shawn McCallef) too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-W-vzELBt8 xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

Funnily enough the dept here which covers name registration does have a few restrictions: The NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages has strict rules that names have to be written in English alphabetical characters, with no umlauts or diphthongs. They cannot be offensive. This didn't stop two of my mates from changing their names legally to "feral" and "7" respectively. xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

I can understand that. For me its not a case of boycotting him, its just that seeing him reminds me I'm watching a movie ie any effect/emotion/suspense a movie has built up is lost. xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

More photos (and vids) here: http://www.canopypiloting.com.au/results.htm xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

"The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking..." xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

I still remember that like it was yesterday....f*cking priceless, but only because no-one came off worse for wear (thanks Jari!) Edited to add: Look forward to seeing you (aircrash/fflyer) boys out there.... (Yes, I'm hoping to not be a whuffo by then!) xj "I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."