Gunner, here's a piece of prime steak with which you can entertain yourself for a while. It's a quote from a NYT article on Steven Levitt (Aug. 3), a hot-shot Univ. of Chicago microeconomist who may be the ultimate economics iconoclast, and who studies strange facts in a fresh way. He defies classification: he's neither liberal nor conservative. Maybe you'll want to track down the Sun-Times op-ed:
"Levitt was curious and went looking for numbers that would tell the story. He wrote up the results as an op-ed article for The Chicago Sun-Times. It featured the sort of plangent counterintuition for which he has become famous: 'If you own a gun and have a swimming pool in the yard, the swimming pool is almost 100 times more likely to kill a child than the gun is.'"
-- Ed Huntress (remove "3" from email address for email reply)
I agree ! I just finished a huge pool that was evevated a bit from the huge backyard. The customer was asking me for ideas on how the 2' retaining wall and deck should meet. There was alot of kiddy forts and such , so I told him he should put a short fence on top of the 2' wall and a gate at the steps. So that he doesn't have to watch the kids all the time in the backyard. He didn't like that , said his 5 yr. was an accomplished swimmer. What ever. I think we're up to 8 kids that drown this year , one just the other day at the Flamngo with lots of people around. Matter of fact I did part of that job, I quit cause of the union thugs. I think we're up to 4-5 kids left in hot cars.
"What is Dihydrogen Monoxide? Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) is a colorless and odorless chemical compound, also referred to by some as Dihydrogen Oxide, Hydrogen Hydroxide, Hydronium Hydroxide, or simply Hydric acid. Its basis is the unstable radical Hydroxide, the components of which are found in a number of caustic, explosive and poisonous compounds such as Sulfuric Acid, Nitroglycerine and Ethyl Alcohol."
"Some of the known perils of Dihydrogen Monoxide are: * Death due to accidental inhalation of DHMO, even in small quantities. * Prolonged exposure to solid DHMO causes severe tissue damage. * Excessive ingestion produces a number of unpleasant though not typically life-threatening side-effects. * DHMO is a major component of acid rain. * Gaseous DHMO can cause severe burns. ..."
formatting link
is pretty hysterical.
"Studies have shown that even after careful washing, food and produce that has been contaminated by DHMO remains tainted by DHMO."
Here is a link to the article..it was abit hard to track down without paying for it...
formatting link
formatting link
you noticed how these enviros have become alarmed by the proliferation of large carnivores in the boonies? I saw one remark to the effect that bears, for example, do not seem to know their place on the "food chain." Why should they? Only man comes up with ideas like a food chain, and with man the idea only makes sense because man is armed. Without his weapons, man is by no means at the top of any food chain. On the contrary, he is down in fourth or fifth spot, depending upon the environment in which he lives. Primitive man was under no illusions about this, nor are the backwoods folk in India today. To a tiger, man is a morsel, as these unarmed joggers seem to be to a cougar, upon occasion. Man is man because he is always armed. That is something they do not teach in kindergarten, nor for that matter in high school. A youth becomes a man when he is first presented with his own personal weapon. That is his right of passage, and those who do not understand that are questionable members of a free society. - Jeff Cooper's Commentaries, Vol. 9, No. 7, July, 2001
buckets and young children can be a deadly combination. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) estimates that annually about 50 infants and toddlers drown in buckets containing liquid used for mopping floors and other household chores. Most of the drowning victims have been between 8 and 14 months old. Between 1984 and 1992, over 200 young children were reported to have drowned in buckets and
21 others were hospitalized. More than 90 percent of the reported incidents where bucket size was noted involved the 5-gallon size.
formatting link
We all know the dangers and fun of mixing children and water and yet children continue to drown. In fact, in 1998 greater than 1500 children drowned in the USA. 93% of these were accidental and non-boating drownings. Researchers wanted to know where children drown in an effort to better plan prevention.
They found that:
Domestic sites -- 9% of total deaths, greatest risk for infant deaths (tubs, buckets)
Fresh water -- (rivers, streams, lakes, creeks, ponds) 47% total deaths, greatest risk for children 5 to 19 years old
Pools -- 32% total deaths, greatest risk for toddler deaths
Salt water -- 4% total deaths
Infants (16%) and toddler still drown in buckets despite warnings. They are top heavy and can not right themselves once fallen. They then drown in as little as 2 inches of water.
Black adolescent boys were 12-15 times more likely to drown in swimming pools than other racial groups. Surveys published in 1977 and
1994 revealed 62% of blacks self-reported limited swimming ability.
formatting link
industrial buckets have recently been recognized as a source of accidental drowning in infants and toddlers. Twelve cases of drownings in these large-capacity buckets constituted 24% of all infant and toddler (age
Heck, what about banning cars? How many kids get killed by them, eh?
And don't give me that argument that the benefits of car ownership on society outweigh the thousands of deaths a year! What price would you put on the life of your child, hmm hmm hmm?
Plus cars release greenhouse gases and carcinogens into the air. And all those roads are a blight on the landscape. And it's a waste of crude oil, making petrol, that could be being made into plastics (and propane for me to melt stuff with!). If we spent what we spend on the auto industry and fuels and highways and whatnot on bus and train systems instead, we'd have lovely transport networks that would be more cost and energy efficient than the current system, would create local jobs driving the things, and would actually make commuting to work a social experience! :-)
Whoa - he admits that math isn't his strong point but that op-ed piece:
formatting link
is _really_ weak (mathematically).
He takes the # of child drownings in pools / # of pools and # of child gun killings / # guns and jumps to probability of child of owner drowning or being shot where parent owns both pool and gun.
Ownership is completely missing in the base statistics but central to his conclusion. In fact, from his data it's possible that there is _nobody_ who owns both a pool and gun. They _could_ be entirely separate populations. And, many people own multiple guns (a few own multiple pools), so that changes the ownership probability.
The 100 times number is totally baseless, hence meaningless.
I live in the UK and haven't fired a chemical-propellant weapon since I was in the shooting team at school! Believe it or not, for a nation where it's illegal to own just about any gun apart from a shotgun (for the farmers), some schools have shooting teams with 7.62mm target rifles, 5.56mm fully automatic magazine-fed light machine guns with telescopic signts, and so on).
Reading back on this stuff was actually pretty funny. If I knew then what was really going on, I think my wife would have had to have taken me to the ER with terminal laugh-face:
Jim
================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================
Have you noticed how these enviros have become alarmed by the proliferation of large carnivores in the boonies? I saw one remark to the effect that bears, for example, do not seem to know their place on the "food chain." Why should they? Only man comes up with ideas like a food chain, and with man the idea only makes sense because man is armed. Without his weapons, man is by no means at the top of any food chain. On the contrary, he is down in fourth or fifth spot, depending upon the environment in which he lives. Primitive man was under no illusions about this, nor are the backwoods folk in India today. To a tiger, man is a morsel, as these unarmed joggers seem to be to a cougar, upon occasion. Man is man because he is always armed. That is something they do not teach in kindergarten, nor for that matter in high school. A youth becomes a man when he is first presented with his own personal weapon. That is his right of passage, and those who do not understand that are questionable members of a free society. - Jeff Cooper's Commentaries, Vol. 9, No. 7, July, 2001
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.