Balta1701

QUOTE(WCSox @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 02:11 PM) What puzzles me somewhat is that the percent difference mass between those gases isn't exactly enormous... Difference between Ar and O2: 25% Difference between O2 and CO: 14% Based on the math, it doesn't make sense that would be able to fractionate Ar from O2 over a height of a few hundred feet, but not O2 from CO. Sorry, I'm getting off topic here... First of all, I keep saying that a few hundred feet probably wouldn't do much - you have the normal, temperature/entropy related scattering which is working against the gravitational effects. Secondly, we're not talking about sticking those gases together and winding up with pure O2 on 1 side and pure CO on the other side, we'd be talking about maybe a very small increase in the concentrations of each component on their respective sides. If CO was a trace component, you could get a bigger effect, but you're still not going to come out with a pure component at the end. When I say Fractionation, I'm saying simply a change in the ratio between 2 components. Any detectable change, no matter how small, would count. You need significantly large columns, or repeated steps, to produce large fractionations using this technique.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 01:37 PM) Those companies have costs related to doing business that have a lot to do with their safety. you can't tell me something like insurance won't go up a lot for these companies if they don't meet the regulations that the insurance companies set forth. How much regulation of these businesses can the insurance companies actually be doing if the Federal Government, which has to give a 24 hour notice before any inspection, finds 96 fairly severe safety violations, several of which last for more than a year (because they showed up 2 years in a row), and the mine is still able to stay in business and finds no reason to correct those problems?

QUOTE(WCSox @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 01:46 PM) That's probably true, given that the actual verical distance is only a couple hundred feet. Then again, even relatively low levels of CO are bad news for the respiratory system. I've always been under the impression that Ar is significantly more dense than molecular oxygen, despite the fact that the molecular masses are in the same ballpark (40 vs. 32). If you pumped a bunch of argon into a mine, I get the feeling that one would be able to measure a difference in concentration between the top and bottom. But maybe I'm wrong about that. No, you're actually quite right. In fact, with Argon, the difference would be bigger than the difference between CO and O2, since O2 has a molecular weight of 32 and CO is 28, so the difference between Ar and O2 would be larger than the difference between O2 and Co. But again, you need a fairly long column to do this. For an example of how this works...you can actually use gravity to enrich uranium for bomb-making processes. If you create a gas (UF6 likely), and build large vertical columns, and then suck the gas out of the top of each column, the gas at the top will be enriched in U235F6 compared to the bottom, which is enriched in U238F6. But again, the degree of fractionation depends heaviliy on the height of the column - a few meters does nothing, a few kilometers probably makes a significant difference.

QUOTE(WCSox @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 01:18 PM) I was trying to determine if there would be more or less CO towards the bottom of the mine, but it appears that the distribution should be more or less even. That would be bad news, given that the CO level as too high for the rescue workers last night. If the mine covered significant vertical distances, then you could have seen a fractionation between the different gases due to gravity and their molecular weights (depending on non-ideality of the gas - probably negligible here). But you'd probably need several kilometers of distance in order to really see an effect, something we certainly don't have here. If you gave me perfectly ideal mixtures of CO, CO2, O2, and N2...just based on their molecular weights CO and N2 would migrate to the top of the column, O2 and especially CO2 would move towards the bottom, but again, you need a long path for this to actually be seen.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 12:57 PM) If there are 13 dead people down there, things will definately change. If not through regular laws, you can bet the lawsuits will motivate companies to change their ways. The lawsuits can put that company out of business, but they can't necessarily make the government increase the scale of its fines or make the government stop giving mines 24 hours warning before inspections (as is currently the law I believe). Let's just say that the lawsuits put the company out of business for this mine accident...if the government doesn't increase its enforcement and fines, what will happen? Another company will come along, start up mining, and will do so without paying enough attention to the inspections again, will pay the fines (miniscule compared with the cost of actually running a safe mine), and we'll wind up with exactly the same thing happening. If the government is fining mines that could explode $3600 or so based on conditions that could explode, but the cost of fixing those problems is several orders of magnitude higher, you can be safe in guessing that this isn't the only mine where these problems exist, it's just the one which was unlucky.

QUOTE(Steff @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 12:24 PM) Yikes.. Poor families of the men/women (??) that are miners. I imagine they know the risks.. I could not be married to someone who did something so dangerous. for all of them. They know that there are risks to being a mine worker, but the question would be...how many of the miners know about the fines/inspection failures going on at that particular mine?

QUOTE(SleepyWhiteSox @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 12:12 PM) sonics fired their coach. Man, that was FAST.

QUOTE(Palehosefan @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 11:53 AM) I'm not saying Leinart will be a bust, I just don't think he's worthy of a top 3 pick, if he fell to 6 with the Raiders, I think it would work out well for everyone. Honestly, I think his stock will fall a little at the combines which could put him available for the Raiders. Aaron Rogers was projected to be a possible top 5 pick as well, and look what happened to him. If a team doesn't have a huge need for a quarterback, they may be better off trying to just sign one or trade for one (given the Rivers/Brees situation) and figure they're going to improve more with the pro-bowl Lineman or linebacker or whatever else.

QUOTE(tonyho7476 @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 11:57 AM) Bruce Levine? Distinct possibility. Balta, reveal yourself! I'd be impressed if Bruce Levine knows this much about geology and vacuum cleaners.

The Pack had an insane amount of injuries this year...3 running backs on IR, like 5-6 different starting running backs all year, Walker on IR...the Pack have a better team than the one we saw on the field all year. If they were to bring back people healthy, then just starting off with Green, Gado, and Davenport all in their backfield, and Driver and Walker at Wideout, they have a decent offensive nucleus to work with. The fact that they have so many good potential running backs could work to mask weakness on their offensive line. I think they may even be in good position if they need to play Rogers next year, just because they have so many decent RB's. They do need O Line help, but how many bad teams don't?

$2.5 million is still too much for the Devil Rays to pay for Matsui after giving up a valuable piece like Baez, when someone somewhere will be willing to give them prospects at some point. Hell, that's about what Iguchi's earning this year isn't it? I could understand that deal if they were only on the hook for $1 million of Matsui's contract...makes him actually cheaper than what he'd command on the FA Market, and if he were to somehow perform this year after failing to do so last year (presumably after being touched by the hand of God), it would make him a decently valuable trade chip for them.

QUOTE(SoxFan562004 @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 11:28 AM) yeah, suprise suprise, reportadly Manny is demanding the O's pick up his two option years on his contract to agree to the trade Since the Red Sox don't give out no-trade clauses, aside from deciding he doesn't want to play or is going to dog it on the field, what leverage does Manny have here?

This WaPo piece contains 1 good piece of news and 1 potentially very bad piece of news. As Professor Cole says, the pullout of troops is probably a good idea, as pulling out troops will likely strengthen the view of the national government, since it will be viewed as more of a nationalized government as the international troops withdraw. However, given that we give $3 billion a year to Israel, $2 billion a year to Egypt, and so forth...does it seem like a good idea to dramatically cut back on aid to Afghanistan, when that aid is something the national government needs to rebuild from 25 years of Civil War? Hopefully Congress will reappropriate those funds. The last thing we need to do is shortchange the Afghan government so much that the drug growers and militia leaders are able to reassert power once NATO pulls out.

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Jan 2, 2006 -> 07:12 PM) From what I heard, inspections turned up around 50 violations in the mine over the last 6 months. It was a shallow mine too, which believe it or not, makes these things worse because the mine is less stable when its shallow. Or so NPR told me. The mine received 208 citations from MSHA in 2005, up from 68 citations in 2004. They paid something like $3300 to cover them all I believe. Some of those fines included penalties for: I'd link to the specific report, but it seems that the MSHA may have taken it down this morning. But just think about this...it looks like the fees that the company owning this mine paid for things which could have led to this explosion were roughly the cost of a few traffic tickets. Update: Here's a link to 1 press report on the number of violations. Supposedly inspectors considered 96 of the violations "Significant and Substantial", whatever that means.

There is already a Baez to the Mets thread where this is being discussed.

I always wonder 1 thing when these sorts of stories hit the airwaves (usually it seems there's 1 or 2 "dog or cat calling 911" stories per year)...how often do dogs/cats dial 911 by accident and end up causing visits to people's homes by police/paramedics when there's no real need?

Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, the mother of White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, is going to run for governor of Texas next year. Interestingly enough though, she's Leaving the Republican Party and running as an independent, mainly to avoid a primary fight with the Governor it seems.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 09:37 AM) A lot of people seemed worried about losing Contreras and not getting anything in return. How about letting Contreras pitch out the season, and if he doesn't re-sign, take the money set aside for re-signing him and go after another free-agent, or take another financially challenged teams salary dump. Letting Contreras walk doesn't necessarily mean getting nothing for him. Well, I think the counterpoint is that the "VERY LEAST" we could get for Contreras is salary flexibility for next year (money which will go to Buehrle immediately if I have my way). But if we decided we wanted to get a little bit more, well think about this; say we traded Contreras for another big-name prospect now. Yes, we'd lose a great pitcher next year, but then when 2006's season ends, what would we have? We'd still have Contreras's money available, but we'd also have that prospect. What would that prospect do? He'd allow us to put in another very cheap person at another position, and thereby save us additional money by putting in youth somewhere else. Not the best example because of Fields, but imagine we traded Contreras for Andy Marte from the Red Sox (not advocating this approach, just as an example). Then, when 2006 ends, we can move Crede for something valuable, and then have Marte under our control at a very cheap price for 5-6 seasons, on top of being released from Contreras's contract. We could then use the money saved by having another very young guy in that spot to go and fill other needs, like keeping 56. That would, in the long term, make us significantly better than just getting Contreras's salary back.

That was sort of my point as well...this plea deal has to be directed at the big guys. This WaPo piece does a decent job of covering most of the tentacles. The one thing it seems to make obvious is that Rep. Ney is burnt toast, and that a few others are likely to go down as well (Delay is in that level - not burnt toast yet, but could very well be.) One interesting thing here is that Abramoff isn't just plea-bargaining to 10 years...he's plea barganing 1 set of crimes for 10 years, and he's facing another set of crimes in Florida that he's plea barganing for 7 years. If I understand this case correctly, depending on his level of cooperation and who he in fact is able to implicate, prosecutors could decide to have him serve those terms concurrently (so he'd only serve 10 years) or consecutively (so he'd serve 17 years).

QUOTE(greasywheels121 @ Jan 2, 2006 -> 01:41 PM) http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2278077 Brees has a torn-labrum and will not be able to throw for four months. I wonder if this spells the end for him in San Diego. I would almost guarantee it means Brees will face the "Franchise" tag again next season...but I would add that I think it's lunacy for the Chargers to hold onto 2 QB's again next year when they could use the additional cap space and acquire something decent by trading 1 of them (They still need help in their Secondary and their receiving corps IMO).

QUOTE(Wong & Owens @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 09:47 AM) What a joke. Does either side really think their god would condone all this bloodshed over a plot of land? Idiots, the lot of them. Cut out that section of land and put it on the f***ing moon. Let them fight over it up there. Unfortunately then the earth's mantle would begin to upwell due to the load being released from it, the upwelling would lead to partial melting and volcanism which would generate new land in that spot.

I swear, Illinois and Indiana have felt more earthquakes than I have since I moved out here...

QUOTE(YASNY @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 09:44 AM) Go with your daughter. That's very cool. I would agree, except for the fact that there's a city in Wisconsin named Madison, and it would sure make it seem like he was saying he was from there to anyone who didn't know his daughter's name.

The real key is not mentionned here: Most of the people in the scheme below Abramoff have already reached plea agreements, so the only people he can really implicate are the people he dealt with in politics. Everyone else turned before him, so turning him doesn't get anything except a shorter jail sentence for him unless he can implicate the political guys he dealt with.

I'm sort of hoping this could be one of those impacts of the sort we've been waiting for in the geology community. Did you know that we actually have quite a few more meteorites from Mars than we do from the Moon? We have more moon rocks of course, thanks to the trips there, but every rock we get from a new location can tell us something new. Why do we have more from Mars? Well, the short answer is that there hasn't been a major impact on the moon recently enough to really kick off any debris. When rocks are kicked off of the moon, they come down on Earth pretty fast because of the distance and gravity. With Mars, its so much farther away that you sort of get an averaging of the rate of impacts, so you have a fairly constant flux, but with the moon, you get them in pulses every time there's an impact.