John Cuthber

"dilution in non-aqueous solution " What solvent do they use?

Good point. So far the estimates are something like 10,000 dead of which none are due to radiation and (from what I heard on the news) 4 were due to the damage to the reactor building. Does that mean we should have 10000/4 threads worrying about earthquakes for every thread about the reactor? The quake and tsunami are devastating disasters that need international help. The problems with the reactor(s) are rather less important yet they seem to be the focus of attention. BTW, Thanks to Ludwik for some information from someone who is actually there and qualified to comment.

"What I'd like to see is where employers are responsible for more deaths" Under the '74 act (and the regulations made under it) the employer has a legal duty to take such action as is required to assess risks to health and safety and then to take actions to ensure that those risks are controlled "as far as is reasonably practicable". While the injury to or death of an employee is sometimes due to external factors or to the employee's own negligence, it is often the legal responsibility of the employer. Since the accident and death rates are lower in unionised work-places (even allowing for the differences in demographics, size of the workforce etc) and there is an obvious mechanism by which Unions improve safety (the Safety Reps) it is reasonable to conclude that the Union reduces the death rate. "You might ask management with British Petroleum about that....whom lost billions in Stock Value or any number of US Firms, who when being investigated for dirty toilets, lose some of their value, they care..." Why don't they do something about it? Safety is usually an investment rather than a cost. For what it's worth, even after paying out billions in compensation and fines BP isn't broke. I don't see holidays, sick pay etc as perks, but I guess that's just a difference of point of view. "To the point however and I understand the demographic differences; The workers in London and those in upper England must have different economical standards, no less than NYC and northern NY. To negotiate for all with differences in cost of living to social structures seems extremely unfair to me on the provider. (Government or Private Industry)" The civil service has a "London weighting" included in the salary scheme. It's not enough to cover the real difference in cost. The employees in the South East are badly done by. At least the TU negotiated some sort of attempt to offset this issue. The management didn't suggest it and, though the price difference between London and elsewhere has increased, the management have resisted calls to increase the payment. They clearly don't mind looking irrational on this point. (They accept there's an issue- so they pay more, but they don't accept that the issue has become more severe, which is inconsistent) "I don't know of any business in the US, that doesn't reward their employees in some manner, especially for those that produced." Nor do I, but I do know of plenty of employers who grossly mistreat their workforce. Most of them are not in the West and most of them ban Unions and persecute anyone who tries to set up any sort of collective bargaining. "Another thing about collective bargaining is the fact that it can be used to push for something by force when the thing being pushed for may or may not be reasonable. This would, of course, not happen if union reps wouldn't become convinced that management is nothing but greedy liars saying whatever they have to to maximize profit and power. But because they often view things this way, they feel justified in pushing as hard as they can to get maximum benefit for the workers." Unions are generally large enough and sophisticated enough to read and understand a company's financial records. They are often significant investors too. They understand the importance of getting a reasonable return on capital. It's obviously not in the workers' interests to bankrupt the company and have all the staff lose their jobs. There may be occasions where a Union has been dumb enough to do that but, as I said, like all things you will sometimes meet a bad Union; that's no basis to judge the entire movement. If we assume a reasonably degree of competency for most Unions then the argument about Unions doing dumb things is a straw-man.

I think the only one done regularly on an amateur basis is making alcohol. there are chemicals used for flavourings. Benzaldehyde is probably one of the easier ones to synthesise, but unless youreally know what you are doing, I wouldn't bother.

"John; Why would legal obligations by law or regulations on Employers be ignored, if unions simple did NOT exist." The evidence* shows that, whatever the rules are (and however well they are followed) unionised workplaces with safety reps are statistically safer. that's a real difference. "If correct when your negotiate a pay/perk increase for your members, do those not in the Union also receive the same things? " Yes, that's correct- pay is agreed nationally (and I think it's odd that you think being paid is a perk) and the same pay rules apply to everyone, whether they are in a Union or not. " no employer wishes bad publicity. " Roughly 3000 people were killed last year in the UK. as a result of their employers failure to assure their safety. Their employers were clearly not that bothered by bad publicity. "Do you see the conflict between union/management or the individual/management in determining wages/perks?" As I see it the conflict is more between the shareholders and the workforce; the money can't pay both. (and I still wonder where this "perks" idea comes from) An individual asking for more money is likely to get told to get lost. A Union asking for it on behalf of all the workforce is likely to be listened to. * "We need to find new ways of engaging workforces in all workplaces of all shapes and sizes, using the knowledge we have gained from the past that properly involved unionised safety representatives achieved better health and safety performance." From http://www.hse.gov.uk/strategy/strategy09.pdf

If I had a seismograph I would have experienced the Japanese earthquake here in England. So all countries experience all earthquakes. If you are looking for epicentres you could look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadly_earthquakes_since_1900 sort the quakes into alphabetical order by country then count them.

LOL

First off I guess I should declare an interest. I'm a Union rep. I don't think there's any difference between middle and lower class in terms of the effect of the removal of collective bargaining. I think the effect would be a return to what happened before there were Unions or, equivalently, a change to the state of affairs that you find in totalitarian regimens where Unionism is banned. In essence the people who had the wealth, and could therefore afford to invest in,factories and such, would pay as little as they could get away with. Those without would get a very poor deal. As it happens the Union I'm in represents people who are almost all middle class professionals. A good fraction of them work in the civil service. Each year, when the pay bargaining is finished and the pay deals agreed, there are people who say that they feel that the deal wasn't very good. The reply is always the same; "You should have seen what Treasury originally offered". I don't think the other employers are any more keen to give away money than the government. Incidentally, I'm a Safety Representative, and I know that the research shows that Safety Reps improve the health and safety performance of employers. So, Jackson33, do you really not think that a better chance of not getting killed at work counts as "I personally don't think any measurable difference would exist, if all unions simply went away"? Just because your experience was of a bad Union is no reason to assume that all unions are always bad. And I bet you didn't try to change the Union's policy did you?; you just grumble about it.

There's a tacit reference to it in one of the James Herriot stories (strictly, it doesn't say the dog is asleep). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Herriot

"he completely right thing to do and the absolutely nicest thing to do. " From whose point of view?

Since the oxide layer reforms very quickly you would need to remove it under UHV conditions. That rules out acid pickling.

"What's black and white and red all over?" An angry nun with an axe.

Interesting. In the UK it is forbidden to be drunk on premises licensed for the sale of alcohol- like bars. It is also unlawful to sell alcohol to someone who is drunk. The laws in the UK seem to be some of the dumbest in the world. Having said that we do quite well on this criterion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate You can also be prosecuted for riding a bicycle while drunk- but you can't lose your driving license for cycling drunk- which seems sensible to me. ( back to the topic again)

A lot of "great" people were talented amateurs, so it doesn't look like it's professionalism that does it. Also a lot of great people were not really all that happy, so it's not joy that makes them great.

"There is nothing fair about subjugating everyone to the same corporate hierarchies." A corporation doesn't actually want money because it doesn't really exist. It is an abstract concept built up by people who want money. If you were to tax those people at some punitive rate then the corporations would go away because they would no longer serve their purpose. I realise they would be replaced by some other means by which rich people would strive to get richer at the expense of their fellow man, but that's not a reason not to try

Further work is required in this field.

They tend not to last long. Anyway, Captain, is it legal to be drunk in a bar (i.e a public place) where you are?

"So what did you solve by redistributing the money from the rich to the poor?" Some degree of the unfairness.

"It sounds so counter-intuitive to use heat when it's hot to lower the relative humidity" Heating air will always lower the RH. What's counter intuitive about it? "It sounds so counter-intuitive to use heat when it's hot to lower the relative humidity" Heating air will always lower the RH. What's counter intuitive about it?

I think that nitric acid passivates iron; it certainly does with some stainless steels. That means that in the right circumstances you might get a powdered iron, covered with a thin oxide layer suspended in a strong oxidant. That's getting near to the conditions needed for an explosive so I'd be a bit careful about trying this one at home.

Flour is not the same as fluorine.

A googolplex is represented by 10 if you use the googolplex as the number base. On the other hand, I haven't space here for all the symbols you need.

You seem to be deliberately missing the point about abiogenesis. "You seperate Abiogenesis and evolution to hide the fact that Abiogenesis is impossible therefore evolution is also impossible" You can't have evolution without life so, in order to even discuss evolution, you have to accept that life exists. Since we are here that's not really an issue; we know life exists. If we assume that at some time in the past, life did not exist, then our existence proves that some sort of abiogenesis took place. By the time evolution can take place you missed the abiogenesis. How the first life arose is nothing to do with evolution. It's plausible (though unevinced) that God created the primordial soup with a few primitive bugs then left them to get on with it and we are a product of that. It could be something like the "panspermia" hypothesis. It could be something else. It wouldn't rule out evolution. As I see it, the biggest bit of evidence in favour of evolution is that, for evolution not to occur, something would have to prevent it. Unless you are saying that God (or whatever) goes round each night and resets the biodiversity clock, how can evolution fail to happen?

I'd have to check but I think that toluene dissolves formic acid, but not urea. However urea might dissolve in a mixture of toluene and the acid. Why do you want to know? It seems an odd pair of compounds.

I'm quite happy to take pot shots at big agriculture. But it doesn't have a lot to do with the OP. (Some of big farming's problems are related- for example they agribusiness selects for yields and storage properties and doesn't care much about flavour or nutrition. That is related (vaguely) to the idea of looking at the natural versions to see if they provide a better product)