Re: Sadly, NomNomNom
Yeah - get a creationist at education, and we could then have Dubya for prime minister.
615 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jul 2008
"... if you want to sell product on the back of it." Or, heaven forfend, even impose extra taxes on the back of it!
There's something a little scary about this article - coincidence or not(?) - I sem to remember that the Sirocco is actually a warm (or is it cold?) wind.
Yes, it's a windcheater.
Remember it well - and I bet he wouldn't have changed his view of politicians had he met Tone, or Call Me Dave!
I must admit to a sneaking liking for his Steady State Universe - much more aesthetically pleasing than the Big Bang. Do not a large number of Buddhist texts contain the words "From beginningless time..."
I've been thinking about the subject of "human spontaneous combustion", as described, for instance, in Dickens' Bleak House.
Admittedly that was fiction, and the guy was long pickled in gin, but notes to the book suggest that Dickens had heard of instances of the phenomenon "reliably attested to." And there are a number of other cases of anecdotal evidence pointing to the possibility that there have been genuine cases of this happening. So we come to:
Dunn's theory of the origin of spontaneous combustion
As is well known, breaking wind is often, even usually, accompanied by the release of methane - a highly combustible gas (British Gas makes its profits from burning methane) but there are often byproducts: hydrogen sulphide, various mercaptans, carbon disulphide (extremely low flash point) and other minor trace compounds fairly swamped by the amount of carbon dioxide produced in the gut by lactose fermenting organisms.
However, it has occurred to me that among these trace products there will be gases with a trivalent atom combined with three hydrogen atoms. Ammonia sprigs to mind, as does arsine (how well named!) from traces of arsenic in the food, and possibly phospine? The latter, as any third or fourth year pupil who studied chemistry in school pre 'elf'n'safety waffle put an end to actually demonstrating experiments in the lab, will take fire as soon as it is exposd to the air. If surrounded by a cloud of methane, this could result in quite a torch, which, with clothes in the immediate vicinity, getting a grip on the local fat content of the body and the cloth forming a wick, could possibility produce an actual instance of "spontaneous combustion."
I think the ico speaks for itself!
"on most issues, I was impressed by their ability to hold an intelligent and informed debate."
Yes, well, I seem to remember there were a couple of 'colleges' - the Stoa and the Peripateia come to mind, where debate was the norm, after which, presumably, they'd all go off to a 'symposium' - i.e., a drinking party, or as we might say nowadays 'a cheese and wine.'
<- no beer in Attica!