[TheForge] Interesting Article OT:

[Peter Fels & Phoebe Palmer]

The lawyers are just doing their client's bidding.
Blame the foks who enter into unjust of frivolous lawsuits.
Blaming the lawyers is kinda like blaming the cops for the 
laws...sometimes they overstep the bounds, but mostly not.

Bruce Freeman wrote:
> Mike,
> 
> Blame the lawyers.
> 
> If you have a dog that will bite people, the last thing you should do
> is put up a sign "Vicious Dog" because then if your dog DOES bite
> someone, you've effectively admitted culpability - end of story.  If
> you put up a sign, "Guard Dog on Duty" and it bites someone, than,
> perhaps, the case will be adjudicated on the facts.
> 
> Likewise, don't name your dog "Wolf."  Name him "Wolfgang Amadeus" and
> call him "Wolf" for short.  (True story!)
> 
> Therefore it remains necessary for those of us who know the hazards of
> this or that to tell folks the true stories.   The labels will never
> do it because no company wants to admit culpability.  There is no
> chemical that can't be used safely.  The protections one must take may
> be cost prohibitive, however.  I have a friend who routinely uses HF
> to etch glass, and has no problem handling it.  She is most definately
> aware of the danger, and deals with it.
> 
> The case of Karen Wetterhahn shows why each of us must be responsible
> for our own safety.  No one else can possibly understand exactly how
> we will be using chemicals.  Or, for that matter, what physical
> hazards we'll let ourselves be exposed to.
> 
> One thing I keep coming back to is that experience is NOT a good
> teacher with regard to safety for the simple reason that accidents are
> fairly rare.  You must think through what MIGHT happen, judge the
> probability of it happening and the consequences should it happen, and
> work to prevent those occurrences that have significant probability
> and consequences.  Just because it has never happened yet, doesn't
> mean it can't happen and won't ruin your day (life?) if it does.
> Experience may help you judge consequences, but experience is a very
> poor teacher of probability because one chance in ten or one-hundred
> SEEMS low to use, but if that's a measure of deaths, think again.
> 
> Bruce
> 
> On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 4:45 PM, Mike Spencer<mspencer at tallships.ca> wrote:
> 
>> Enough of those scenarios and we don't find safety warning credible
>> even when they say, "Get this on your fingers and you will die in 10
>> minutes" or "breathe these fumes and your liver will turn to compost
>> before bedtime."
>>
> 
>>
>> - Mike
>>
>>
>> [1] E.g. dimethylmercury: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn
>>
>> --
>> Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~.
> 
> 
>