I've always said I could get anything banned if you just give me enough time. I've been tempted to try it, but someone beat me to it. If you want to learn how the anti-anything crowd works, visit the Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division (DMRD) web page. In March, DMRD's campaign prompted a city council in California to try to ban Styrofoam cups because they contain DHMO.

Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) is in our soda, milk, baby formula, swimming pools, lakes, streams, drinking supplies, bathtubs, fruit juices, vegetables, etc. It plays a role in the formation of many cancers, including Hodgkin's Lymphoma, colorectal cancer, leukemia, basal cell carcinoma, and malignant melanoma. It is found in detectable and biologically significant levels in virtually all tumors and other cancerous and precancerous growths. It also is a component of acid rain and contributes to soil erosion. Exposures to excess amounts of DHMO have caused loss of life and destruction of property in California, the Midwest, the Philippines, and a number of islands in the Caribbean - just to name a few recent cases.

It's a colorless and odorless chemical compound, also referred to by some as Dihydrogen Oxide, Hydrogen Hydroxide, Hydronium Hydroxide, or simply Hydric acid. Its basis is the unstable radical Hydroxide, the components of which are found in a number of caustic, explosive and poisonous compounds such as Sulfuric Acid, Nitroglycerine and Ethyl Alcohol.

It's Water!!!!!!!!

The DMRD site is a perfect example of how the truth can be manipulated. They make water sound like the next DDT - without lying about it. Everything they say is accurate. The trick, as they demonstrate, is the context in which you use the truth.

For example, it is accurate to say that there is enough DHMO is a pool of water to kill every person in the world if properly distributed. What a terrifically horrifying terrorist weapon that would make!

The trick, of course, is properly distributing it. A water bubble injected into the right place will kill you - so if we could get everybody to stand in line so we could inject them - they would all die. Sound stupid? This same claim has been used by the anti-nuclear power crowd in their claims about plutonium (which is more dangerous as a heavy metal than it is as a radioactive element).

Congratulations to the folks behind the DMRD site.

And don't forget to check out their ad for Acme Klein* Bottles, a real one-sided, zero-volume bottle you can buy. As they say, Acme Klein Bottles- where yesterday's future is here today!

* A Klein bottle is made with a Möbius Loop -- a one sided, one edged surface. Give a strip of paper a half-twist, then tape the ends together. It's one side and one boundary, with delightful properties dear to mathematicians. A Klein Bottle is a 2-dimensional manifold - its inside is the same as its outside. Although it's a 2-Dimension manifold, it can only exist in 4 dimensions - but our universe has only 3 spatial dimensions! Sorry - didn't mean to mess with your mind that much.

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