Manslaughter Trial for Failing to Predict an Earthquake

Wait, Wait!!!!!!!!!!! Don't go! What satellite?

Where will it come from? Shirley, someone knows where it will go down.

Is there any peanut butter on board???? It might slow down the descent, if it gets stuck on the roof of the atmosphere. _{I know it's a long shot.}

Seriously, Lyn, don't you read the nooz?

The last report I heard is that the only certainty is that it won't land in Antarctica.

LOL -- I guess I'm guilty of involuntary man's laughter.

I am serious...and don't call me Shirley

Wasn't LynDoor(R) developing a peanut butter based satellite repellent?

Bruce,

Right, we were. The cost to deploy the LynDoor™ PB&J Satellite Repellant Consumables proved to be "sky-high", and it seemed that the main ingredient was disappearing much more rapidly in the field, than in the lab.

Many dogs in the area were also reported to have gone off their kibble. Perhaps a result of the strong force field exerted by the olfactory proximity sensors used in the project. This might also explain the numerous reports of dogs continually licking the rooves of their mouths. (Or is it roofs?)

We also had many problems with cold weather operation.

We are now working on a system to deploy a bazillion slinkies , in orbit, along the expected path of the rogue bird. It is hoped that the satellite would pick up some of the slinkies and just bounce back into space, once coming in contact with the earth.

We hope to have this system deployed in early summer of 2012.

Stock is selling fast, so PM me with your order, soon.

Regards,

LynDoor™Industries.

It's a shame KrisDel(R) isn't up to the task.

We only have one roll of aluminum foil in the house and my wife has been using it each day when she packs my lunch. With so much of the satellite falling to the earth my hat will need to be at least 6 layers thick. I don't think I have enough foil.

I hate not being prepared for emergencies like this.

Calm down sue. Get down into the CR4wlSpace...it's quite safe down there. Packrat has squirrelled (pun intended) away enough stores to let us survive most impacts.

The reinforced concrete roofs over shipping containers (lagged and ventilated) will absorb the impact from anything smaller than ½ mile long. We had a structural engineer check the back of my fag packet.

The AAAS "expressed concern"? How timid. They should have said that this prosecution is horrifyingly damned stupid. The prosecutor's head should roll, and also the judge's for failing to dismiss the case summarily.

And the race continues between the US and Europe on who is better at assessing blame.

Everything must be someone's fault.......................we will spend money and get to the bottom of it............................as soon as we return from holiday.

I think we already know - Europe wins hands down on blame, the US wins on litigation.

Now, I wonder if the people of l'Aquila have a case against Nostradamus?

And while I'm thinking of it, I'll just go off and check who is supposed to be warning us of the end of the world and all that (want to make sure I'm wearing clean underpants!)

That's not fair! The race isn't over.

In completely boring and unrelated news, the Chinese economy continues to grow at about 9%. In an unprecedented showing of unity and cooperation, the US and Europe have just completed a 3 year, 30 million dollar study that has concluded that the Chinese are just mean.

Rest easy, FEMA is poised, and ready to save us.

"Be it satellite re-entry, terrorist act, or natural disaster, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its daughter agency FEMA would bring to bear the expertise and authorities of agencies across the federal government to support state and local governments.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/09/21/fema-prepared-for-dead-nasa-satellites-plunge-to-earth-this-week/#ixzz1YazGOXGx"
The plan is to take some of the 500,000 left-over, toxic travel trailers that were deployed during the last fiasco and carpet the projected impact area with them. Only problem is Janet Napolitano can't decide where she wants them put.

It's really getting difficult to differentiate between jokes and reality.

What Jokes??? ;-)

Just a minute!!

"With a massive dead NASA satellite due to plunge back to Earth this week, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is laying the groundwork for a fast response in case the 6 1/2-ton spacecraft falls over American soil."

This is a rather large chunk of U.S. metal which is most likely to fall on non-American soil (or water)! Shouldn't FEMA be poised to save the rest of us aswell? You'd better hope it doesn't fall in Italy or you'll really be in trouble!

This is a rather large chunk of U.S. metal

Not true................we bought the parts from China. They also loaned us the money to buy them. It's their fault!!!!

_{This is getting silly.}

Silliness and outrage would seem to me to be normal responses to these two events.

First, we have a Scientific Inquisition launched because seismologists failed to use the correct crystal ball or tarot deck to predict what can not be forecast with any accuracy.

Second, there's incoming space junk.

Either way we have no control over events.

Nope. All we can do is blame someone and prosecute them after the fact.

I wonder what the unemployment rate for lawyers is?

Seems to me, the seismologist's advice about the earthquake (have a glass of wine) is applicable to the space junk issue as well.

Drink wine, read about it later.

NASA did make it clear, they have no way of predicting where the junk will go down, at least until two hours before the dive - expected on friday.

So maybe the best advice will be, duck at the last minute.

Found a live satellite tracking Web site so we can all monitor the downward transport of the UARS from the safety of our computers.

Anyone want to start a betting pool?

Tracking is fun, especially if somethin's bearin down on you (Oh Maria!)

What I want to know is, why do they say "DON'T TOUCH IT" if you find a piece of um their space debris? Is it hot? Space bugs? Alien fingerprints?

If we're gonna have a betting pool, I'll have to consult the oracles. (Why not, it's not seismology eh)

If any of it crashes in my yard, it's going on ebay.

The possibility of ebay exploits don't look good for North America at this hour.

Of course, I still haven't figured out which direction it's travelling, and I don't know what happens to that orbital path on the moment of re-entry. (John Belushi's interpretation of the space station event has taken hold of my imagination and will remain prominent until I see an instant replay)

Meanwhile, I think I'll stand on my desk and do a few jumping jacks.

Ah! NASA is saying "it's ours, give it back". What might be sellable on eBay is the right to gain access over private land to the parts for recovery. In the UK, a homeowner did just that a few years ago when a locomotive and several ballast trucks derailed and went down the railway embankment at the end of his garden. Made a fortune out of selling access rights for the recovery crane and personnel. So did the legal adviser.

Here's the latest news report

Do US schools still teach Duck and Cover?

never heard of it... had to google this video, omigod

Somewhat more applicable to space junk than it was to the atomic bomb _{I personally approved of the advice involving the placement your head in the appropriate position to "...kiss your a$$ goodbye".}

I vaguely remember doing that in elementary school in the 1960s. We all thought it was hysterically funny to get under our desks.

We got under our desks for earthquake drills when I was in school in south america. For some reason, no one found it funny. They should've mentioned the atomic bomb, just to lighten it up a little. Fire drills, on the other hand, were always a bit of a good thing....

I remember firedrills & bomb threats as being good things

all good clean fun, before caller ID, gps tracking, security cameras...

Yeah, we had 'bomb threats' on a regular basis when I was in junior high school in Canada. In those days the principal's grudging announcement of a 'bomb scare' was greeted with happy smiles! "Bomb spoof" was understood.

There were never any bombs, and no one ever believed there were any bombs. No one was ever caught making, exploding, or doing anything with real bombs, I'm sure, in the entire province.

But periodically some kindly misfit would say the word "bomb" in a discrete phone call to the school, whereupon we were given the afternoon off.

It was a far better use for imaginary bombs, than any of those fools with the real ones ever dreamed of.

I love the little tune, to help the tinies remember what to do....<sigh> such innocent days!

funny!!

Please don't pick on the poor people at FEMA. In my life I got one hot meal, two doughnuts and five bags of ice from them.

It is good that our water was not out because the hot meal made me sick. So, a score of -1 for the hot meal. The donuts were pretty old but I was hungry. Add two zeros for the donuts. The bags of ice were very, very helpful. Add +5 for them.

Thus, -1 + 0 + 0 + 5 gives FEMA a +4 score from me.

is that out of 100?

meanwhile here in Texas during Ike, we had several tractor trailer loads of ice that FEMA drove around in circles, and then carried out to an AFB in San Antonio and dumped on the runway to melt instead of distributing as it was supposed to.... and then tried to accost/arrest a photojournalist that took pictures of the travesty.

They might still have some Katrina Trailers availible.....cheap. Just spread some dog poop around to mask the Formaldehyde odor.

FEMA trailers are going for about $3k around here.... been thinking of getting one, but then i'd need a new truck to haul it..... and finding one that wasn't used to cook meth in or was completely trashed is probably going to be a trick...

You aren't kidding.....the toxic waste from meth production dwarfs any bad effect of Formaldehyde.

Never fear! BlueGoo is here!

They should go back and check the writings of Nostradamus. Maybe it was predicted and this is all just a big misunderstanding.

Actually it's a good media decoy for premier Silvio Berlusconi who is on trial for corrupting judges, mafia connection, money laundering, sex with a minor, abuse of power, etc., etc., etc.

Vince

Sounds like we could use him in Congress.

Next week the dogs and cats are being put on trial for not giving an early warning of the earthquake.

When is Etna next due?

Very, very funny guys! Why don't you blame everything on Bush???? Obama is!!!

You may be unaware that the people of Hartlepool, England hanged a monkey as a French spy. And the people of a French village executed a cow on a charge of witchcraft.

Of course, all this was 200-300 years ago, but it's nice to see some traditions being upheld.

That's hard to believe! but if true, you can tell how extremist some people can be. Were they granted a last wish?????

http://thisishartlepool.co.uk/history/thehartlepoolmonkey.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartlepool (story near the end)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_trial - my mistake, it was a pig...easy mistake to make! They both taste good

On a more serious note, you may be interested in the case of Fawza Falih, sentenced to death for witchcraft in 2006, confession obtained after beating for 35 days, on the accusation of an impotent man. Reported by Saudi officials to have died in prison, 2010.

Wonder how they treat their seismologists.

How absolutely appalling. One sort of accepts that 400 years ago, it was somehow understandable on grounds of "ignorance"...but today? That poor woman. I wonder if they were force feeding her?

<speechless>

'Cos it's not about blame. It's about liability.

Would it not be more logical to sue God's Personal representative here on Earth (the Pope) for damages caused by "Acts of God"? (this was a Jim Baen/Sam Gunn story line BTW...)

There was a movie about that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Sued_God

I predict there will be a lot of earthquakes predicted it Italy in the near future.

I see a new business opportunity opening up; Liability Insurance for Seismologists!

Tom D.

Are they executing fortune tellers too?

At first, I thought that this was nuts holding scientists accountable.

Then I gave it some thought, why not. After all, most professionals (engineers, doctors, military leaders, etc.) are held accountable for their actions. Why should scientists be an exception. Since scientists are highly respected and a high value is put on their opinion by most of the general public and our politicians, they should be held accountable equally as well.

The current State of the Art for earthquake predictions does not allow predictions that are "exact" from the average persons point of view. To an earthquake scientist "years" is a very, very short period of time.

A forecast such as "a 50% chance of a magnitude 6 or greater earthquake in the next 250 years" might be a good, state-of-the-art forecast for an area. This forecast might be useful for government planning and worth funding by taxpayers. But, this forecast is pretty worthless for the guy living in the area that wants to know if he can stay home this weekend or if he should plan for an earthquake evacuation Saturday afternoon between 3:00 and 6:00.

If you want to put earthquake scientists in jail for not doing the impossible then the most logical outcome is that no one will want to be an earthquake scientist. Then we will put engineers in jail for building on land that they didn't know would have a major earthquake every 250 years. This might cause no one to want to be an engineer. If we keep going with this we could end up with everyone that didn't die of disease or exposure living in caves and eating by hitting animals over the head with rocks.

Perhaps we should reconsider this "held accountable for their actions" thing to consider concepts such as "reasonable" and "state-of-the-art".

You're right, and in fact seismologists do much better with volcanic eruptions. With volcanoes, the question of "where" is already answered, and allows them to focus on measurements and monitoring of predictable sequences of events that allow the risk window to be fairly narrowly defined, and evacuations to be made to prevent harm.

In the case of earthquake, there is no established pattern to allow prediction of the exact location where or when a major quake will strike or how strong. Impact of the quake on human settlement varies a lot, depending on how deep, whether offshore, etc etc. even if the general area where it is expected is known, there's no way to assess whether evacuation is called for.

I mention the word Creation and that is overly religious?

Someone else mentioned the Pope as being "God's representative". Was that overly religious too?

I simply mentioned that we don't really understand our Universe very well and that it is very presumptuous of us to say that we can accurately determine what will happen in nature. We're not that smart.

This thinking of trying to hold someone responsible for not predicting a natural occurring event is the result of man thinking he is more capable than he is.

I agree that the Admin flubbed that one, I didn't think your comment qualified for censorship. That said, I am not the one that claims that the Pope is God's personal representative here on earth, that is actually Catholic dogma. They make that claim, not I. If we are going to call these events "Acts of God" (which is a legal term BTW) then is it not logical that if someone is harmed that they would have legal recourse against God just as they would have recourse against acts committed by anyone else? And since the pope claims to be God's personal representative here on earth is he not the person to sent the Summons to? I'm trying to point out the legal fallacy here. The pope is certainly more legally liable (and under the "joint and several" theory, much more financially exposed since the Catholic church has a LOT of money in it's treasury.) than these scientists who think they MIGHT be able to predict earthquakes A FEW MINUTES before they occur.

Just out of interest (ready, in fact, to sell up and book tickets!), is anybody aware of a part of the world that is not subject to eathquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornados, flooding, terrorism, drought, repressive governments, oppressive governments, suppressive governments, depressive governments (sorry, redundant, that is universal!), and also ideally with a good standard of food, beer, wine, women (not necessarily in that order!).

If so, please PM me, and keep on the hush-hush. If we all move at once the earth might tilt, and I'll spill my beer!

The ocean

Please be specific. I've heard they can be subject to Tsunamis, flooding, terrorism, piracy, all sorts of governments, and I need to be convinced about food, beer, wine, women, etc!

with a big enough Ship you can ride anything out

What??? the Ocean???? Safer than land? how? for fish maybe!!!

Quite frankly, my little bit of the Garden meets pretty much all of those conditions. Earthquakes don't get above 3 or 4, and happened very rarely, flooding lasts only a few days, likewise a "terrible drought" might last 6 weeks...terrorists tend to stick to the big cities (on the odd occasions they get past the watchers) and the rest of the natural disasters are on a small scale compared to the rest of the world. The wine is imported, but the mead (more mead!) is great and we do very palatable things with barley.

We keep quiet about the high standard of food and beer, and we hide the womenfolk...just in case some of the ol' colonials come back....

Mind you, you do need to be able to cope with rain. Unlike Camelot, it does come down during the day....

Hang on - I just noticed you're already here!!!

Rose, FWIW, my wife and I visited England last about 8 years ago, for two weeks, in Exhall, Coventry (At least that's what the postal code said. I can't tell one English town from another. But we did go to Coventry, and loved the people there as much as in our friend's neighborhood!), and we were accused of bringing our Northern Virginia, US, weather with us. Record highs, no rain, for the entire two weeks. I was disappointed. I grew up in Oregon, and thought we'd at least get to see some comparable weather while we were there.

But I'll let you and Del know next time we come over, and maybe you can put on some proper British Bluster for us?

But no earthquakes, thanks. I got those in California, Oregon, Guam, Japan, and several others that were somewhat misplaced, but happened nonetheless. Including our rogue a few weeks ago in NoVa, USA.

Speaking of the humor of duck and cover, when you are in California for the first time in 15 years, and expect the locals to react with aplomb to the odd earthquake, it's humorous to see people in the local coffee shop jumping around yelling "What's that? What's going on?" when an earthquake hits, while you, yourself sit there, thinking "Idiot! It's YOUR State Anthem being played. It's an earthquake, Dolt!"

Come to think of it, that's almost what I said to people here in NoVa when ours hit. But I was more diplomatic about it.

Anyway, I digress. Rain on my, please. Just don't shake, rattle, or roll, my surroundings, OK? Thanks, I knew you wouldn't.

LOL!

Only shake I've felt was the 3.2...and I decided staying in bed and not phoning the local radio station was the way to go...

If you make it this way again, do give us a shout...we can show some real history and offer you some proper beer - all warm and flat

Thanks Rose. I will. But I may be one of the few non-drinking Americans you'll ever meet. Just never wanted to start. And the first time I smelled beer I knew that would never change. Can't get the smell past my nose!

But I'll take a tour of anything else you'd want to show me. Saw a couple of your castles on our last two trips. One un-restored, which I thought was fascinating, and one restored, which I though somewhat less interesting, because I didn't get the sense of life in the times, from it. Too much pageantry and frippery for me. Personal choice I guess.

But England is fascinating. And I love the people I've met. We may be "two nations separated by a common language", but, underneath, I think there is much we can agree upon. And with the civil folks I've met there, even disagreeing isn't unpleasant.

Who do I get to sue over the 5.8 earthquake we recently had on the East coast we wasn't warned about?

I mean, I didn't die, or get hurt.....or have any damage personally, but damnit, I want a chunk of the pie too.

As Bill Shakespeare once said, "First, let's kill all the attorneys".

I think he said "lawyers"....

Might have, but I always thought he said "liars". Come to think of it, one IS a subset of the other, so it would still work, no?

Yeah we have to blame someone for everything these days.
Mankind is degenerating into a bunch of 5 year olds..
He started it, did, didn't etc... I blame the bankers myself.
Maybe they should watch this film?
Del