This is the transcript of the actual radio conversation of a US naval ship with Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland.
Canadians: Please divert your course 15 degrees the South to avoid a collision.
Americans: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees the North to avoid a collision.
Canadians: Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.
Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.
Canadians: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.
Americans: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN, THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES' ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH, I SAY AGAIN, THAT'S ONE FIVE DEGREES NORTH, OR COUNTER-MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.
Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call.
Ask A Demolitions Expert
By Bruce MacInnis
J&H Construction
Dear Demolitions Expert:
My husband and I split last year. We're still good friends, though, and lately he's been seeing a new person, whom I feel isn't right for him at all. Should I say anything? I know I'm not jealous--after all, I wasn't right, either. What's my move?
--Protective in St. Paul
Dear Protective,
When choosing dynamite, remember that it's a tricky substance to work with. For most jobs, you should be using "40 percent" dynamite as per U.S. Bureau of Mines chart #14-A, which is best in the controlled-shock wave aspect. You want your expansion rate right around 9,500 feet per second. Anything more powerful, like 50 percent or liquid oxygen accelerant cartridges, and you're looking at a negative safety aspect.
Dear Demolitions Expert:
I work in a large office, and I'm in love with the woman in the next cubicle. I'm wary of office romance, though. Could the answer be as simple as switching cubicles if things don't work out? Or am I giving myself an excuse to do something I know is wrong?
--Discombobulated in Detroit
Dear Discombobulated,
Bringing down the entire building in one blast may not be a good idea. Before you do anything else, check the structure for unusual materials like four-chrome/18-tungsten reciprocate vanadium industrial tool steel, which was standard for load-bearing members in the mid-'70s. For that you'll need Krupp esterless cross-colloided nitrocellulose number 16, or even higher. Your safety aspect with this material is important, because it can predetonate mildly, which isn't often fatal, but it can give you a pretty good scare. Buildings are a demolitions expert's bread and butter, so just go slow, hit all the beams, and synchronize all your blasts to bring her down all at once.
Dear Demolitions Expert:
I enjoyed your response to the reader whose husband doesn't enjoy foreplay. In your humble opinion, is there anything wrong with a gal like me demanding that her boyfriend go slow? Call me old-fashioned, but I'm not the "Wham, Bam, Thank You, Ma'am" type!
--Frustrated in Fordsville
Dear Frustrated,
Unlike buildings, bridges have a built-in gravity aspect that lets you get a little creative. Your steels are more in the line of two- to six-inch cast deflective-damping silico-manganese-molybdenum alloys, if they're even that good. An amateur might run det-cord the length of the thing, put a canister of 40-percent every 10 yards, and squeeze the blast with gelatin nitrate esters. But you have to remember that any concussive blast will have a torqueing effect on the structure, so I'd use Primacord instead of squeeze and compression, and let gravity do the work.
From the Onion. www.onion.com
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