http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?no_d2=1&sid=08/01/28/1517254 "From the
what-you-can't-monitor-can't-hurt-you dept: Ellis D. Tripp noted a village
voice article about attempts in NYC to pass a law requiring permits for air
monitoring devices including apparently Geiger counters. I'm sure everyone
will feel much safer not knowing anything.

Quotes from the /. article:

...its actual a response to a possible panic caused by people using bad
detectors. Imagine if hundreds of people buy shitty detectors that can be
tripped by high NOX counts(A car emission). Suddenly on a hot afternoon
during rush hour, 100+ counters register a large nuclear presence.

The Russians mass produced personal Geiger counters 6 months after the
accident in Chernobyl I bought one. It saved my ass in the 90s when I took
my Wife and Kids to Ruggle's Mine in Maine! Basically it's a mica mine but
when were hiking I told my kids not to touch the yellow chalk like rocks
that some kid was using to write his name on in the caves. i took my Geiger
counter out and measured 350millirads. I told the kids parents that the rock
was radioactive and they should take him to wash his hand and to change his
clothes and get him in a tub. I believe the yellow rock was pitchblend.

We, the people, have been far more endangered by governments panicing due to
false alarms (WMDs anyone?) than anyone could possibly be endangered by any
number of citizens with faulty air monitoring instruments. At least we have
laws that can be used to punish people who give false alarms...

My BS detector is going off like crazy. Uh... I mean, my BS detector *would*
be going off like crazy if I owned one.... which I don't... because owning a
device that can measure the atmospheric content of BS is quite illegal and I
wouldn't do anything like that.... *glances over shoulder nervously*

>From the article: "Dave Newman, an industrial hygienist for the New York
Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, claimed that under this law,
the West Virginia air-quality experts who tested the air after 9/11 would
have been a bunch of criminals."



Sooooooo... Is this the same New York City where officials repeatedly told
all the residents after 9/11 that the air was just fine, and safe to breath?
And are now being sued for ignoring the warnings of air quality testing from
volunteers? See... if those volunteers could have been kept shut up because
their out of state equipment was not permitted for use in NYC... hummmm...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_arising_from_the_September_11,_2
001_attacks 

--
James.


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