Supervolcano beneath Yellowstone update: Caldera Volcano shocks researchers

I read that in the old days they'd toss a bar of laundry soap in it (whatever a bar of laundry soap is)

 

Hey, we're looking to YOU with YOUR expertise for the answer to that mystery....you know, Chinese laundries!

 

So solly round eyes, that was then, now is you fill your dumps, we fill out banks.

 

Yeah, I saw on TV the other day, that even fortune cookies are made in the US these days!

Guess Confucius sold out to the capitalists, huh?! I think it was to Dear Abby?

 

I have a Puerto Rico story that I can tell but my Blonde Haired Sparkling Blue Eyed Girl is here so I must do this quick so she doesn't see....she get's easily jealous and as it is she hates it when I have to travel.

I was near a place in Puerto Rico where the ocean has carved out a cave and water blow hole in the rocks along the shoreline and there is a place there that serves Puerto Rican style Coconut Milk basted whole Roasted Pig and they have a few very pretty daughters of the owner of this outdoor eatery who told me the story of how a...Goat I think fell into the Rock Blow Hole...etc...etc....I don't remember the whole explanation as these two girls were getting me and a Puerto Rican native member of my Team who brought me there EXTREMELY DRUNK on Rum drinks that had Coconut and other fruits blended in.

The two daughters of the owners knew my Team Member when he was younger and they told him how they being quite a few years younger when he joined the Military out of High School had always had a crush on him....and they told him in Spanish....which they did not know I can understand, speak, read and write...."But we always would argue which one of us would get you if you came home but since you brought you handsome white friend this solves the problem!"

So...my Team Member knowing that I understood every single word coming out of these girls mouths looked at me and winked and didn't tell the girls a thing while I acted like I could not understand Spanish be constantly asking him...."What did she say?" LOL!!!!

So....the two very pretty girls kept giving us drink after drink after drink but just to let some of you out there know and understand....when a person is as physical and as determined in both mind and body to RUN....not jog or walk....but RUN....11 miles one day and 6 miles the following day....every day....365 days a year unless those day's he is on a JOB....and in that case he is running anyways....and then once a month....it used to be twice a month and before that once a week....run 20 plus miles....and once a week....used to be 3 times a week....swim 1 mile non-stop....plus weight lift with free weights 3 times a week as well as a variety of other exercises many of which involve carry a weighted pack or leg and arm weights while jogging up a mountain path....etc......

.....anyways....any people who do this level of physical movement and training of their bodies ARE BASICALLY IMMUNE TO ALCOHOL!!!!!

I have a very hard time getting drunk as by body and liver and kidneys process alcohol at a much faster level than the average person so in order for me to actually get drunk I must do multiple shots while drinking beer in the shortest time possible and this is true for all members of my Team.

So....putting down 20 triple shot over 100 proof Puerto Rican Rum mixed fruit drinks in 4 hours just was NOT going to get either my Puerto Rican Team Member or myself drunk....and we both knew the girls were trying VERY hard to get us drunk.

The rest of the story is more properly read in a Penthouse Forum Letter....although I would say that the Penthouse Staff seems to write those! LOL!!!!.....so I won't post the details here but needless to say it was a very interesting afternoon and evening!!!

AboveAlpha

 

Blame my age - I initially read that as "I was a Geyser in Yellowstone a few years back" lol!!

 

I don't get why people worry about this kind of stuff so much. Really, as inconclusive as the evidence you give is, take it at face value: it means that we're probably going to have it erupt within the next 60,000 years. I only expect to live for another 60 years, so there's about a tenth of a percent chance that it will erupt in my lifetime - and when it does, it probably won't reach where I live. :/

It's interesting stuff, but it doesn't phase me at all thinking about it. When was the last major ice age? When did we develop writing? haha, 60,000 years is forever.

 

Read as 'Geezer'...?! Now that makes sense...Foster's beer goggles will do that down there...

 

You just tipped your hand...figured out who you are..............

 

You got me!!! LOL!!!

I love these commercials....especially the one where they say...His two cents are worth $15 85. LOL!!!

AboveAlpha

 

"Even" fortune cookies? That is funny!

Honestly, I dont think its a good thing that the US has such a huge trade imbalance and makes so few things, now, that could be made here.

Im scared for the future of my adopted country here. I see fat complacency and totally cluelessness about what is going on over the western horizon. Dont get me started!

As for capitalism, mao was a weird sort of anomaly. He did some good, and a lot of bad. But Chinese are naturals at business. Chinese nationals dominate the economies throughout SE Asia, and increasingly elsewhere.

I was at a resort in Belize, and on the island here was a the one store. Chinese, and behind the counter was the daughter lying on the floor studying. Its a scene
repeated over and over and over. Sold out?

To what do you think Americans have sold out?

 

com·pla·cen·cy
n.
1. A feeling of contentment or self-satisfaction, especially when coupled with an unawareness of danger, trouble, or controversy.

 

Close, but no cigar. Here's the curriculum vitae

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
by James Thurber

"WE'RE going through!" The Commander's voice was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full-dress uniform, with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly over one cold gray eye. "We can't make it, sir. It's spoiling for a hurricane, if you ask me." "I'm not asking you, Lieutenant Berg," said the Commander. "Throw on the power lights! Rev her up to 8500! We're going through!" The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. The Commander stared at the ice forming on the pilot window. He walked over and twisted a row of complicated dials. "Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!" he shouted. "Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!" repeated Lieutenant Berg. "Full strength in No. 3 turret!" shouted the Commander. "Full strength in No. 3 turret!" The crew, bending to their various tasks in the huge, hurtling eight-engined Navy hydroplane, looked at each other and grinned. "The Old Man'll get us through," they said to one another. "The Old Man ain't afraid of hell!" . . .

"Not so fast! You're driving too fast!" said Mrs. Mitty. "What are you driving so fast for?"

"Hmm?" said Walter Mitty. He looked at his wife, in the seat beside him, with shocked astonishment. She seemed grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had yelled at him in a crowd. "You were up to fifty-five," she said. "You know I don't like to go more than forty. You were up to fifty-five." Walter Mitty drove on toward Waterbury in silence, the roaring of the SN202 through the worst storm in twenty years of Navy flying fading in the remote, intimate airways of his mind. "You're tensed up again," said Mrs. Mitty. "It's one of your days. I wish you'd let Dr. Renshaw look you over."

Walter Mitty stopped the car in front of the building where his wife went to have her hair done. "Remember to get those overshoes while I'm having my hair done," she said. "I don't need overshoes," said Mitty. She put her mirror back into her bag. "We've been all through that," she said, getting out of the car. "You're not a young man any longer." He raced the engine a little. "Why don't you wear your gloves? Have you lost your gloves?" Walter Mitty reached in a pocket and brought out the gloves. He put them on, but after she had turned and gone into the building and he had driven on to a red light, he took them off again. "Pick it up, brother!" snapped a cop as the light changed, and Mitty hastily pulled on his gloves and lurched ahead. He drove around the streets aimlessly for a time, and then he drove past the hospital on his way to the parking lot.

. . . "It's the millionaire banker, Wellington McMillan," said the pretty nurse. "Yes?" said Walter Mitty, removing his gloves slowly. "Who has the case?" "Dr. Renshaw and Dr. Benbow, but there are two specialists here, Dr. Remington from New York and Dr. Pritchard-Mitford from London. He flew over." A door opened down a long, cool corridor and Dr. Renshaw came out. He looked distraught and haggard. "Hello, Mitty," he said. `'We're having the devil's own time with McMillan, the millionaire banker and close personal friend of Roosevelt. Obstreosis of the ductal tract. Tertiary. Wish you'd take a look at him." "Glad to," said Mitty.

In the operating room there were whispered introductions: "Dr. Remington, Dr. Mitty. Dr. Pritchard-Mitford, Dr. Mitty." "I've read your book on streptothricosis," said Pritchard-Mitford, shaking hands. "A brilliant performance, sir." "Thank you," said Walter Mitty. "Didn't know you were in the States, Mitty," grumbled Remington. "Coals to Newcastle, bringing Mitford and me up here for a tertiary." "You are very kind," said Mitty. A huge, complicated machine, connected to the operating table, with many tubes and wires, began at this moment to go pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. "The new anesthetizer is giving away!" shouted an intern. "There is no one in the East who knows how to fix it!" "Quiet, man!" said Mitty, in a low, cool voice. He sprang to the machine, which was now going pocketa-pocketa-queep-pocketa-queep . He began fingering delicately a row of glistening dials. "Give me a fountain pen!" he snapped. Someone handed him a fountain pen. He pulled a faulty piston out of the machine and inserted the pen in its place. "That will hold for ten minutes," he said. "Get on with the operation. A nurse hurried over and whispered to Renshaw, and Mitty saw the man turn pale. "Coreopsis has set in," said Renshaw nervously. "If you would take over, Mitty?" Mitty looked at him and at the craven figure of Benbow, who drank, and at the grave, uncertain faces of the two great specialists. "If you wish," he said. They slipped a white gown on him, he adjusted a mask and drew on thin gloves; nurses handed him shining . . .

"Back it up, Mac!! Look out for that Buick!" Walter Mitty jammed on the brakes. "Wrong lane, Mac," said the parking-lot attendant, looking at Mitty closely. "Gee. Yeh," muttered Mitty. He began cautiously to back out of the lane marked "Exit Only." "Leave her sit there," said the attendant. "I'll put her away." Mitty got out of the car. "Hey, better leave the key." "Oh," said Mitty, handing the man the ignition key. The attendant vaulted into the car, backed it up with insolent skill, and put it where it belonged.

They're so damn cocky, thought Walter Mitty, walking along Main Street; they think they know everything. Once he had tried to take his chains off, outside New Milford, and he had got them wound around the axles. A man had had to come out in a wrecking car and unwind them, a young, grinning garageman. Since then Mrs. Mitty always made him drive to a garage to have the chains taken off. The next time, he thought, I'll wear my right arm in a sling; they won't grin at me then. I'll have my right arm in a sling and they'll see I couldn't possibly take the chains off myself. He kicked at the slush on the sidewalk. "Overshoes," he said to himself, and he began looking for a shoe store.

When he came out into the street again, with the overshoes in a box under his arm, Walter Mitty began to wonder what the other thing was his wife had told him to get. She had told him, twice before they set out from their house for Waterbury. In a way he hated these weekly trips to town--he was always getting something wrong. Kleenex, he thought, Squibb's, razor blades? No. Tooth paste, toothbrush, bicarbonate, Carborundum, initiative and referendum? He gave it up. But she would remember it. "Where's the what's-its- name?" she would ask. "Don't tell me you forgot the what's-its-name." A newsboy went by shouting something about the Waterbury trial.

. . . "Perhaps this will refresh your memory." The District Attorney suddenly thrust a heavy automatic at the quiet figure on the witness stand. "Have you ever seen this before?'' Walter Mitty took the gun and examined it expertly. "This is my Webley-Vickers 50.80," ho said calmly. An excited buzz ran around the courtroom. The Judge rapped for order. "You are a crack shot with any sort of firearms, I believe?" said the District Attorney, insinuatingly. "Objection!" shouted Mitty's attorney. "We have shown that the defendant could not have fired the shot. We have shown that he wore his right arm in a sling on the night of the fourteenth of July." Walter Mitty raised his hand briefly and the bickering attorneys were stilled. "With any known make of gun," he said evenly, "I could have killed Gregory Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand." Pandemonium broke loose in the courtroom. A woman's scream rose above the bedlam and suddenly a lovely, dark-haired girl was in Walter Mitty's arms. The District Attorney struck at her savagely. Without rising from his chair, Mitty let the man have it on the point of the chin. "You miserable cur!" . . .

"Puppy biscuit," said Walter Mitty. He stopped walking and the buildings of Waterbury rose up out of the misty courtroom and surrounded him again. A woman who was passing laughed. "He said 'Puppy biscuit,'" she said to her companion. "That man said 'Puppy biscuit' to himself." Walter Mitty hurried on. He went into an A. P., not the first one he came to but a smaller one farther up the street. "I want some biscuit for small, young dogs," he said to the clerk. "Any special brand, sir?" The greatest pistol shot in the world thought a moment. "It says 'Puppies Bark for It' on the box," said Walter Mitty.

His wife would be through at the hairdresser's in fifteen minutes' Mitty saw in looking at his watch, unless they had trouble drying it; sometimes they had trouble drying it. She didn't like to get to the hotel first, she would want him to be there waiting for her as usual. He found a big leather chair in the lobby, facing a window, and he put the overshoes and the puppy biscuit on the floor beside it. He picked up an old copy of Liberty and sank down into the chair. "Can Germany Conquer the World Through the Air?" Walter Mitty looked at the pictures of bombing planes and of ruined streets.

. . . "The cannonading has got the wind up in young Raleigh, sir," said the sergeant. Captain Mitty looked up at him through tousled hair. "Get him to bed," he said wearily, "with the others. I'll fly alone." "But you can't, sir," said the sergeant anxiously. "It takes two men to handle that bomber and the Archies are pounding hell out of the air. Von Richtman's circus is between here and Saulier." "Somebody's got to get that ammunition dump," said Mitty. "I'm going over. Spot of brandy?" He poured a drink for the sergeant and one for himself. War thundered and whined around the dugout and battered at the door. There was a rending of wood and splinters flew through the room. "A bit of a near thing," said Captain Mitty carelessly. 'The box barrage is closing in," said the sergeant. "We only live once, Sergeant," said Mitty, with his faint, fleeting smile. "Or do we?" He poured another brandy and tossed it off. "I never see a man could hold his brandy like you, sir," said the sergeant. "Begging your pardon, sir." Captain Mitty stood up and strapped on his huge Webley-Vickers automatic. "It's forty kilometers through hell, sir," said the sergeant. Mitty finished one last brandy. "After all," he said softly, "what isn't?" The pounding of the cannon increased; there was the rat-tat-tatting of machine guns, and from somewhere came the menacing pocketa-pocketa-pocketa of the new flame-throwers. Walter Mitty walked to the door of the dugout humming "Aupres de Ma Blonde." He turned and waved to the sergeant. "Cheerio!" he said. . . .

Something struck his shoulder. "I've been looking all over this hotel for you," said Mrs. Mitty. "Why do you have to hide in this old chair? How did you expect me to find you?" "Things close in," said Walter Mitty vaguely. "What?" Mrs. Mitty said. "Did you get the what's-its-name? The puppy biscuit? What's in that box?" "Overshoes," said Mitty. "Couldn't you have put them on in the store?" 'I was thinking," said Walter Mitty. "Does it ever occur to you that I am sometimes thinking?" She looked at him. "I'm going to take your temperature when I get you home," she said.

They went out through the revolving doors that made a faintly derisive whistling sound when you pushed them. It was two blocks to the parking lot. At the drugstore on the corner she said, "Wait here for me. I forgot something. I won't be a minute." She was more than a minute. Walter Mitty lighted a cigarette. It began to rain, rain with sleet in it. He stood up against the wall of the drugstore, smoking. . . . He put his shoulders back and his heels together. "To hell with the handkerchief," said Waker Mitty scornfully. He took one last drag on his cigarette and snapped it away. Then, with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad; erect and motionless, proud and disdainful, Walter Mitty the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last.

 

Ok, same idea, fewer words.

 

Paying for one's way by working toward goals, etc. has been sandbagged by the entitlement culture now prevalent in the US....sit back and let someone else do it! Also replaced with entertainment-seeking, soft-hedonism.

And related to the OP topic: a good catastrophe with subsequent hardships to wake the US up would help get things back into perspective!

EDIT: What's the old saying, "What doesnt kill you will make you stronger." ~ philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche

 

Not back to the topic just yet. Tell me if you read "the secret life.." ? It is hilarious and apt.

The catastrophe I see coming for the USA is not one to make anyone but the enemies of the US stronger.

A Yellowstone explosion isnt going to sweep away the weak and leave the US a shining star. There isnt going to be an eruption anyway, not while anything resembling civilization as we know it exists.

If you could take a time machine ahead 50K years, do you think you'd fine anyone? I kinda doubt it.
It wouldnt be yellowstone that did it, either.

 

The so-labeled "greatest generation" in this country is the one that came thru the hardships of the Great Depression and WWII to result in what became 'productivity & prosperity' unmatched in world history.

'Culling' of the herd is often needed to strengthen the herd! But as you intimate, culling to the extent of devastation of the herd may be where the US is heading..?!

 

Why did you delete the q about walter mitty?

The Chinese people have gone thru far worse than the depression and WW2, and look what is happening now.

The era of American dominance was a product of WW2 of course, in large part because everyone else was devastated.

That era is over, and not likely coming back.

No, I didnt mean culling the herd to devastation. I mean being reduced to third world status.

 

Was too long and didnt read it as I was feeling lazy & 'complacent' this morning..

And what is the 'ideology' that is promoting our 3rd world status---reduced military presence, 'unearned' entitlement mentality, bogged down with finances being sucked from a litigious society and resulting in risk abatement defensive strategies, upcoming generations lacking self-discipline, a play mentality dominance, educating per social justice while diminishing the basics, etc. etc. etc.???

 

Well, at least read the last paragraph! Ok?

I dont think all the above can be put under one ideology.

The way the USA spends more on "defense" than everyone else put together is not a positive thing,

Dont pick on lawyers, I will be one myself in a couple more years. I wont help you if you are mean. ;D

Here is an insidious ideology: Christian fundamentalism, with its regressive anti intellectualism.

 

maybe "vent" isn't the right word...set off a couple of nukes underground above it so the magma chamber can push against it w/o building up the pressure that would cause it to bust thru. not that it would ever happen. nukes are expensive to be using for experiments to prevent something that might never happen during the age of man. you'd have to know it was going to happen to try it, then you'd have nothing to lose.

 

Having read several history books on the ancient civilizations of Babylon, Greece, and Rome and why they all fell, the common denominators were: 1) excess, 2) resulting in the degradation of societal mores, and 3) the softening of their militaries---back in the days of hand-to-hand combat, the 'softening' was a result of men becoming more effeminate.

The 'Conservative' ideology by its very name doesnt 'promote' a life of excess, nor a degradation in societal mores, and for sure not a soft or diminished military. Try again....but this time with some honesty!

 

Gotta go, taikoo, and let this thread get back on topic; but some parting words of 'wisdom:'

The Conservative' ideology has learned from history; whereas, the Liberal ideology tries to repeat history!

Sounds like the liberal academia that you are saturated in has set you up for some needed 'culling!'

 

Huh? Whats with this swipe at me on "honesty"? Totally uncalled for, you!

Regarding military, "imperial overreach" is also a problem, not just "softening".

The US expenditure is enormously disproportionate.

Christian fundamentalism is a gross cultural weakness.

Its intellecutally dishonest and dangerous not to recognize those things.

Unlike some from my home country, I actually want the USA to be successful and strong.

 

Actually, I do not worry about it at all. I am however aware of it.

Kind of puts things in perspective as far as I am concerned. As in "Don't sweat the small stuff". I just hope some people will look at this and past events, and look more at the good things in life, instead of worrying about the petty things. People scream that cars are going to destroy all life on the planet, not even seeing that that is nothing, especially when compared to what things are out there that can really and truly kill almost all mankind.

You just do not get it. The issue is not the "pressure" itself, but the reaction when this type of lava hits the atmosphere and expands exponentially.

How about this. We build this gigantic syringe, and then pump up magma from another part of the planet, and use this to inject this volatile magma deeper into the planet. We can even use Silly Putty (tm) to form a kind of cap over this hot spot, so that lava can't come back up and endanger us ever again.

Why not? It makes about as much sense as detonating nukes around the magma chamber.