Hey Mog,
did you take a look at that "wiki"?
It's under the first heading under "business career".

rex

Last Edited : Thursday, 23 May 2013 - 15:08

OK, I looked, what about it?

Oops, thought you'd find it interesting ...
guess I was wrong.

rex

I cant believe Ocklahoma haven't already accepted the fact their buildings need to be built in way as mog described ,,,well at least the schools ,,,the children ,bless em, did all the right things they were told to do ,, but whats the point of hiding under a table if the building cant withstand it ,,,,, ok fair enough the tornado went straight through the middle of it ,but surely it's worth investing into a design for a school that is safe in absolute worst conditions,. I'm sure they will do this now for their sake.

There's a builder's problem with most of Oklahoma and its that the ground is mostly clay (poor drainage) with a high water table;

So apparently that's why their houses don't have basements and school kids are herded into above ground concrete reinforced hallways during tornadoes;

It was said that the kids probably drowned due to a broken water pipe in the hallway.

rex

The reported drowning has been debunked in later interviews/follow-up.

It's not a regional building problem, many were saved by in-ground shelters/safe rooms.
It's just the preference with present day building when erecting new subdivisions or single family housing projects. Most single family new construction homes most commonly use 'slab' foundations without basements.

Basements are more common in metro/city or dense population areas and in older construction, I think.

Are 'all' buildings in earth quake prone zones built to withstand a huge/high level quake? No...the same here in FL...which actually experiences more twisters than
OK...not to mention hurricanes. One can drive 10-15 miles in any direction from the attractions and see dozens of mobile or pre-fab housing subdivisions.

It's cost versus risk....sure if money is abundant, then one can build for all types of risk, but the average joe can't afford an additional 8-15K for the minimum upgrades.

To think you can build every house/school/public building to withstand an F5 storm is folly....an F3 direct hit will (in most cases) destroy brick and concrete construction.

Sugar,
I'll grant that you're right about the debunked idea of the kids drowning in the concrete hallway, but I spent 20 years of my life in the building trades with ten of those as a builder
And/So this that follows imho is believable:

"" www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/05/21/185857916/why-oklahomans-dont-like-basements "
"We've got a high water table and red clay that expands and contracts depending on how much moisture there is in the soil," Keller says. "That expansion and contraction causes cracks in basement wall, and cracks mean leaks."""

In a state with probably the worst history of tornado activity (tornado alley), it's difficult to believe that folks would prefer to risk living there without a basement unless there really is a negative reason to have a basement;

And the truth is that clay soils do rise and fall along with the water table lifting and dropping any structure built on it causing damage.

The best ground for building after solid rock is on sand from igneous rock (i.e. pink sand (yellow sand is from sandstone and not as strong));
But any sand is better than clay because it allows water to drain up and down without movement of the ground level or the foundation of any structures built upon it.

rex

Last Edited : Friday, 24 May 2013 - 13:46

Yes, I know about clay soils...I'm not from FL, just live here now...so, yes, high clay soils can make the 'life' and upkeep of a basement more of a 'problem'....not that it isn't possible.

From the article you posted:
basements in Oklahoma have such a reputation for leaks, they can actually be a barrier to resale.
"For most homeowners, it just doesn't make sense, moneywise," he says.

Basements/Cellars just aren't a 'routine' feature in developments....years ago, having at least what one would call a cellar was routinely used for a combination shelter and food storage.....these days, if the supermarkets closed, most of the country would starve....at least on the coasts...out in what most libtards call 'flyover' country (like OK), many still know how to survive.

Even if you don't burrow, you can streamline a building to have very little air resistance and it wouldn't be any extra expense if the design is made by a smart engineer/architect. Think about how kids build sloped skateboard ramps out of plywood. The anchors would go down 20 feet, whatever, to secure this to the ground. Heck, make it out of steel framing if you want. People want to be safe, there is a way. Sure, a direct hit from a giant twister is hard to guard against, but Americans seem to always go for the old fashioned, sometimes crummy way of doing things, even though there are proven ways to do better! Coastal houses have to be able to withstand hundreds of miles per hour winds, and some people build big enough to do that. I've seen pictures of beach houses made of rock and 12 X 12 beams. Earthquake zones call for lighter structures that can bend. And so on.

Excuse me, I need to correct myself, that is, beach sand does not provide a good foundation for construction because the individual particles have all been rounded due to ocean activity (pounding of waves and surf and probably chemical corrosive effect of salt water ...
the sand particles tend to literally roll away from each other).

rex

Last Edited : Saturday, 25 May 2013 - 04:30

Doesn't everything have a limit?
Wouldn't top secret information also be forbidden to the press or is that how China's getting our stuff?

Thought their espionage was due to their computer hacking expertise.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22650267

"It is not any more the Sweden we all thought we knew."

That is exactly what happens when you invite people into your country that don't desire to become integrated, but only desire what social benefits they can receive. Sadly, the US is going down the same road.

Another sentence says it all....throw more taxpayer money at the new residents to try and bribe them into becoming 'Swedish'....total folly.

He said: "Maybe a lot of money should be invested in second- and third-generation immigrants, to make sure they learn Swedish.

Multiculturalism only divides people, but I could be wrong....seems the trouble is at the hands of "youths"....so maybe it's just a simple problem that another social program will solve.

Last Edited : Saturday, 25 May 2013 - 10:22

There was a program separating the "gangleaders" moving them away to other areas until this conservativ government decided to save some money and ended it. That program worked well when it was in place. Now we got lower taxes but pay the price for destruction instead.
Its not at all about the social benefits Sugar. The ones revolting do not get any since they are not registered for it. They are 15-25 yr old boys/men who only drift around because there are no jobs they can get. Also they do not want benefits since that involves a lot of control from society so they instead become more or less criminal. There are at least 77000 people living here not registered for any benefits. Most working in shady buissiness for money under the table and such. Then a few hardened criminals. Also the gangmember wannabees who are the ones starting these riots to prove themselves to the established gangs in order to become members.
I pretty hard to get social benefits here nowadays and if you do it's hard to get by on it. It's not much more than food for the day that it covers.

Last Edited : Saturday, 25 May 2013 - 12:07

For the record we lost over 58,000 American draftees in battle in Vietnam over tin and oil;
So those that died there certainly did and do rate a salute on Memorial Day.

rex

Last Edited : Wednesday, 29 May 2013 - 20:49

"So those that died there certainly did and do rate a salute on Memorial Day." TR

Absolutely!

I'm sorry they got drafted and I'm even more sorry they died for nothing at all. They also killed over a million Vietnamese, and Cambodians and Laotians as well. For nothing. Good idea. Let's all celebrate.

I've been thinking about it and I decided that since WW2 was the last non-nuclear and also the first atomic war, it is in a different category from the wars that have followed. (None of the subsequent wars were about protecting the American shores, since no one was invading us, or even attacking us. ) People who fought in WW2 expected the world and civilization to continue no matter what the outcome. It was about who would dominate, not about what might possibly survive.

A real war is about survival and no one with nukes wants to use them because it will kill us all. So now war is just a way to decide political issues and it isn't mainly soldiers who get killed, it is 90% civilians. (look it up) Unless you can convince me that my actual imminent survival is at stake, I can't support any of the current military operations America is involved with. It seems to be all about money, arms sales and oil.

Allowing people to make vast fortunes from arms sales is absolutely crazy and really sickening. Arms go to kill people, and arms dealers want war. They make sure it happens, too. So, I can't support the current system whatsoever and if that makes you angry at me, well, so be it. I imagine that if you don't want real peace you have a stake in seeing war be profitable. In the US, so many people are supported by the arms industries that it protects itself very well. The arms makers are in every state so they have support everywhere.

Eisenhower warned us about this. He took his sweet time about doing it, though, and didn't do anything to stop the Military-Industrial-Religious complex. All efforts to stop proliferation of arms has been futile. Corporations now write the laws to their benefit. The government is filled with self-seeking millionaire lawyers. Most of the US budget goes to the military instead of helping us at home. It is a sweet deal for the rich arms dealers, really. You'd think American patriots would stand up and yell about the level of corruption in government and the military but they are too busy trying to stop gay people from getting married, for some reason! Conservatives want to control your behavior in the bedroom but they don't care about CEO's ripping off their employees. In fact, they love it!

USA is number one! Just not in any of the good categories any more. I'd like to see us be #1 in literacy or lowest infant mortality or most wholesome food or longevity. Not most polluted, most owned by corporations or most expensive, but least effective medical care in the developed world. We don't even have fast trains. (Blame Eisenhower for that too, since he made the interstate highway system at the expense of the railroad system we already had in place.)

Mog the Barbarian

Mog, concerning your comment about the 58,000 dead draftees that killed 1,000,000 Vietnamese, I think this line from a movie that went something like this:
"all I wanted to do was make and sell pizzas and instead I come to Vietnam and get attacked by a tiger", is my best answer ...

those poor slobs didn't ask to get sent to Vietnam to kill, they were put on a boat or plane and dumped there to kill or be killed;
And over 1,400 of those dead draftees were from my state of New Jersey.

I'm going to see if I can find a list of their names.

rex

The draft was the only reason the war resistance movement ever started. People had a personal stake (well, not rich people, they got out of it, like GW Bush) in the war because they or their loved ones could be taken and thrown into combat.

Now that there is a mercenary army (ooops, "all volunteer") taken mostly from the ranks of the poor there is little popular resistance to military service. We have become jaded in empire, we let the dogs of war loose when we need oil and we don't look at the pictures of the kids we murdered today. Send in another drone, boys! Oh, dang, it killed a bunch of women and children... uh, combatants! Another victory for freedom!

I went up to Vancouver B.C. Canada over the weekend to see a show of cartoonist Art Spiegelman, the creator of Maus. It was a huge retrospective and I was pretty amazed at how much work he does to achieve his final art. The Vancouver Art Gallery is great, too, they put on a ton of good shows.

Vancouver is a really neat city, the huge mountains loom over it like a Swiss village. Water, trees and beautiful women abound. No freeways going through town, so the place is whole. Traffic can be nightmarish, however.