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tkdguy

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My wife and I bought a square inch of Abraham Lincoln's farm. The deed cost $5 a few decades ago. The owner of the 35 acres was selling it one inch at a time.

 

You're actually purchasing permanent "access" to the land rather than the land itself. But the deed was a neat enough souvenir to be worth the price to us. 

 

I guess I could argue in the court that for "my" Mars property that I should have the permanent right to access the property, even if they someday make a landing pad out of it or dump their toxic wastes there.

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8 minutes ago, Michael Hopcroft said:

isn't there a treaty in place that deprives Earth nations of the ability to arbitrarily claim a celestial body, whole or in part, as their sovereign territory?

Yes, there is. China is not a signatory to it.

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5 hours ago, tkdguy said:

Explosion in Beirut, over 50 fatalities

 

 

 

I'd be surprised if this event doesn't generate many hundreds of fatalities.  This is the kind of explosion where people just cease to exist.

 

The mind boggles at the kind of stupidity required to store literal kilotons of ammonium nitrate in a city center for six years. Like if I was touring a warehouse and some dude told me "here is where we keep our pile of 2700 tons of ammonium nitrate", I'd be on my way to the airport.  You'd think people in Beirut would be a little more knowledgeable about the dangers posed by explosives.

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3 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

I'd be surprised if this event doesn't generate many hundreds of fatalities.  This is the kind of explosion where people just cease to exist.

 

The mind boggles at the kind of stupidity required to store literal kilotons of ammonium nitrate in a city center for six years. Like if I was touring a warehouse and some dude told me "here is where we keep our pile of 2700 tons of ammonium nitrate", I'd be on my way to the airport.  You'd think people in Beirut would be a little more knowledgeable about the dangers posed by explosives.

Hey hey hey. Explosives aren't dangerous sitting around. They're only dangerous when they explode! I'm sure the owners didn't plan on all that fertiliser exploding, so no worries!

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12 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

I'd be surprised if this event doesn't generate many hundreds of fatalities.  This is the kind of explosion where people just cease to exist.

 

The mind boggles at the kind of stupidity required to store literal kilotons of ammonium nitrate in a city center for six years. Like if I was touring a warehouse and some dude told me "here is where we keep our pile of 2700 tons of ammonium nitrate", I'd be on my way to the airport.  You'd think people in Beirut would be a little more knowledgeable about the dangers posed by explosives.

 

7 hours ago, Lawnmower Boy said:

Hey hey hey. Explosives aren't dangerous sitting around. They're only dangerous when they explode! I'm sure the owners didn't plan on all that fertiliser exploding, so no worries!

This would segue nicely into a study of Epistemic Responsibility -- the idea that we are responsible for the things we believe as well as what we do.

 

I have no doubt the operators of the factories had talked themselves into believing storing that stuff would be same. Now that this has happened, they are obviously blame-worthy for their carelessness, but would they have been equally blame-worthy if the storage facility never exploded? We may have a version of Hitchen's Razor in action ("What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.")

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On 7/23/2020 at 9:27 AM, death tribble said:

That is unfair. To the Australians......

 

It was the lack of gorgeous Hispanic maidens that lead future generations of Australians to be so cranky and their land so full of venomous terrors.

 

Texas is just right.  I just asked the Hispanic maiden I married and she approves this message.  :P

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On 8/5/2020 at 5:07 AM, Old Man said:

 

I'd be surprised if this event doesn't generate many hundreds of fatalities.  This is the kind of explosion where people just cease to exist.

 

The mind boggles at the kind of stupidity required to store literal kilotons of ammonium nitrate in a city center for six years. Like if I was touring a warehouse and some dude told me "here is where we keep our pile of 2700 tons of ammonium nitrate", I'd be on my way to the airport.  You'd think people in Beirut would be a little more knowledgeable about the dangers posed by explosives.

So, smoking would be a bad idea.

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