Better Living Through Chemistry

A co-worker (cow-orker?) brought this ancient (circa 1953) fire extinguisher, that he came across when he was cleaning out an old house the other day, to work with him this morning. He thought perhaps he could sell it on E-Bay or something and he wanted me to "Google" it for him. According to the back of the can it is 90% carbon tetrachloride. We talked to our building engineer and he told us he knew of this chemical from when he was boy and his father told him it was extremely dangerous stuff. It turns out that " The fact that high temperatures cause it to react to produce Phosgene made it especially hazardous when used against fires." Say what? Phosgene " gas gained infamy as a chemical weapon during World War I." Oh goody, now get it the heck off of my desk! :-)

Posted via email from Our Family Blog

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The Tea Parties

I didn't make our local Tea Party , but it pulled hundreds of people as well... Tea, anyone? from Father Hollywood by Father Hollywood Like hundreds of thousands of other Americans, the Hollywoods enjoyed a tea party this past Wednesday. "Tea party" (wink wink). Nothing subversive about sipping a little Darjeeling, eh wot? Nothing to see here, Miss Napolitano. Anyway, our local festivities were held at Veterans Memorial Boulevard in Metairie. There were literally thousands of people crammed into the neutral ground (though on that day, the ground was anything but...), as cars and trucks poured by the busy boulevard laing on their horns in support. Here are pictures. And like every such gathering in our environs, there was even a brass band and an improptu "second line" parade. It was a "party" after all. But it was a party with a serious reason. The crowds were so overwhelming that it was hard to hear the speakers, and unfortunately, we did have a fe...

Child Driven Education

Here is a Ted Talk with Sugata Mitra on Child Driven Education... very unschooling-like I think. :-) I've seen videos of him before, this is an update on his research on letting groups of kids learn on the internet, mostly without any supervision at all. Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

Viva California! USA out of California Now!

Gene Veith points to a Russian who predicts the breakup the American Empire. Gene is somehow unaware of the dozens of secessionist movements in various states. Granted they are almost all small but still, they exist and this could be a good time for us. Those who know me already understand that I'm a California Nationalist who I doesn't think California should have joined those united States in the first place. Being a part of that empire just costs us money, we get nothing in return. These days we get to be hated by foreigners for being Americans and mocked by Americans for being Californians. Getting us out of the US yesterday would be a day too late as far as I'm concerned.

The Peaceful Gnome

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