The Super Volcanoes are here! We're all going to die!

[shereads]

But we'd already booked a hotel room in Whangerei. We had to pass through Auckland. And then back through it again to behold the mighty Waikato. Auckland is bloody unavoidable.

Sounds like the Lubbock, Texas of the southern hemisphere.

 

[xssve]

My personal view is not wholly scientific, however, I have lived within a couple mile of the "West Hills Fault," which is part of the great Pacific Fault, for 30 years. If you ask, yes. We do get quakes regularly. Yes. I do remember Mt. St. Helens eruption(s).

There is no real reason for tectonic plates to move. My feeling is that they move because we are building things near them, people are moving near them and so on. That shifts the weight bearing on the plate, you know.

I would really like to see all the people along the Pacific plate jumping up and down in unison, just to see what happens. It might be really kewl

That would be cool - for a little while.

Ah yes, the Yellowstone Caldera. I'm in the four inch zone I believe, i.e., four inches of ash after the initial eruption, enough to collapse the roofs of most buildings - I plan to use a snowshovel.

Of course the Toba supereruption is often credited with the mtDNA "bottleneck", presumably the species was down to just a few thousand for a while.

 

[shereads]

This just in: Wyoming used to be next-door to Scotland. Or so says author Winchester.

Stay tuned for more late-breaking developments in the Plate Tectonics disaster.

 

[cantdog]

Take a number.

Mine says 3. Is that good?

Sounds like the Lubbock, Texas of the southern hemisphere.

Lubbock is perfectly avoidable, to a person of any character. Besides, I daresay you could find a place to piss there. Not so Auckland. One Tree Hill, you know.

 

[trysail]

Well, if we're going to spend a lot of time worrying about "The Big One," I suppose we might just as well do all our worrying in one place and at the same time.
___________________________________

Nuclear Material Seized by Slovak Police Was Uranium
By Radoslav Tomek and Andrea Dudikova

Nov. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Nuclear material seized yesterday by police in Slovakia included enriched uranium capable of being used in a ``dirty'' bomb Slovak Deputy Police President Michal Kopcik said.

Police arrested three people, two in Slovakia and one in Hungary, for trying to sell less than half a kilogram (1.1 pounds) of the substance. The material's origin is not certain, although police believe it may have come from the former Soviet Union, Kopcik said, speaking at a press conference alongside Hungarian police officials.

The seized substance was uranium 238 and 235 in powder form, Kopcik said. The material was supposed to be transferred from Hungary, he said. The suspects were arrested on both sides of the Hungarian-Slovak border in a joint operation between the two European Union countries.

``The material was even more dangerous because of its powder form,'' Kopcik said today in Bratislava, Slovakia. ``It could be used for production of a dirty bomb.''

Illegal atomic smuggling incidents have risen almost four- fold since 2006, the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Nov. 20. The Vienna-based IAEA has recorded 1,266 incidents of nuclear smuggling since 1993. Some 18 cases have involved highly enriched uranium or plutonium, the essential ingredients for a bomb.

Slovakia and Hungary, members of the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, border Ukraine, which isn't part of any of the two blocks. Slovakia and Hungary will become members of the borderless Schengen system of the EU countries next month.

Police in Slovakia and Hungary had cooperated in the investigation over several months, Kopcik said. The suspects were trying to sell the material for about $3,500 per gram.

 

[mjl2010]

All we need is...

Some really really big bolts and a lot of duct tape.

Bolt all those tectonic plates together and keep em from moving. That way, no more earthquakes. See. Easy as pie

MJL

 

[shereads]

Some really really big bolts and a lot of duct tape.

Bolt all those tectonic plates together and keep em from moving. That way, no more earthquakes. See. Easy as pie

MJL

Duct tape wears out. Bolts snap.

Next?

 

[THROBBS]

Duct tape wears out. Bolts snap.

Next?

Guess what, She?

It's another day! and we made it!!!

(though we are probably doomed for this afternoon)


Roll them dice! Roll 'em Roll 'Em git them doggies er ro'..

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Actually, what I did was, I went and poured another rum drink.

So much for sanity.

I want drugs while waiting to die after the big one hits. Heroin and cocaine and stuff like that, that goes right to the pleasure center in the cerebal cortex and goes "tickle tickle tickle." Bad stuff in normal times, but just the thing when we're all gonna die!

 

[cantdog]

Harlan Ellison's first Dangerous Visions had a story like that, a short. "Carcinoma Angels" it was called. It ain't nihilistic if you genuinely have nothing to lose, now is it?

 

[cantdog]

I always kinda dug tectonic plates. Made the globe like a big jigsaw puzzle thing, or one of those games with the squares sliding past one another in the little tray. I loved the maps where the continents bust up and re-form and the polar caps shift about.

Kinda impermanence made manifest. But with volcanoes.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Harlan Ellison's first Dangerous Visions had a story like that, a short. "Carcinoma Angels" it was called. It ain't nihilistic if you genuinely have nothing to lose, now is it?

Precisely!

(Precisely on both sides of that - it is nihilistic if you do conceivably have any possible thing to lose.)

 

[cantdog]

Precisely!

(Precisely on both sides of that - it is nihilistic if you do conceivably have any possible thing to lose.)

Yo. That shit is pretty damn self destructive.

All junkies wind up having the same personality, too, it seems, and it isn't a real pleasant person.

 

[shereads]

I always kinda dug tectonic plates. Made the globe like a big jigsaw puzzle thing, or one of those games with the squares sliding past one another in the little tray. I loved the maps where the continents bust up and re-form and the polar caps shift about.

Kinda impermanence made manifest. But with volcanoes.

Wyoming used to be next-door to Scotland. Theoretically cowboys should wear plaid chaps.

 

[Guest]

Wyoming used to be next-door to Scotland. Theoretically cowboys should wear plaid chaps.

They don't already?

 

[TxRad]

They don't already?

Only in musicals.

 

[Guest]

Only in musicals.

 

[shereads]

Plaid Chaps would be a good name for a band.

Their music would be awful. But their name would rock.

 

[cantdog]

Chaps. Crotchless leather pants.

Hmmf.

 

[Guest]

Chaps. Crotchless leather pants.

Hmmf.

What's not to like?

 

[shereads]

What's not to like?

Limited color selection, that's what.

 

[only_more_so]

Plaid Chaps would be a good name for a band.

Their music would be awful. But their name would rock.

Especially if you go expecting to see a couple of scottish guy, and end up with gay cowboys. Or vice-versa.

 

[THROBBS]

Limited color selection, that's what.

How so?
I would think men (and women) of all races can wear plaid chaps!

You just have to know your "season".

 

[jayce1066]

Chaps, batwings, shotguns or chinks? (no that's not a racial slur)