12.07.11
Department of Mass Entertainment for Stupid People
Mythbusters, the popular TV program of minor science, engineering and explosive parlor tricks for the answering of trivial questions no one with sense gives a shit about, had a bit of a problem yesterday:
A “MythBusters” experiment went awry Tuesday, sending a cannonball blasting through a home, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office said.
Sheriff’s spokesman J.D. Nelson told NBCBayArea.com that a projectile from an Alameda County firing range in Dublin missed its intended target and hit a home near Tassajara Road and Somerset Lane — going through one wall and exiting through another.
The Sheriff’s Office said it was a cannonball fired by a “MythBusters” crew that “took a few unfortunate bounces.” It was not known what the experiment entailed.
The zany team on the Discovery Channel TV series attempts to verify or debunk urban legends, popularly held beliefs and movie scenes by conducting experiments — repeatedly warning young viewers not to try them at home or without a parent.
“MythBusters has examined whether a collision with a bug can kill a biker (debunked), whether it is possible to shoot the hat off a person’s head without harming the wearer (debunked) …” reads the story, explaining the show’s durable appeal for a mass audience of miscellaneous dummies and very young children.
“The MythBusters’ Twitter account retweeted a post from one of the show’s cast, Grant Imahara, stating the team was to be working with artillery,” the news piece concludes.
Along with Ghostbusters, the SyFy channel show in which a crew of white trash morons employ lots of cheap electronic kit and night vision goggles in the pursuit of cold drafts, heat spots, thumps and creaking noises in empty houses, Mythbusters is the very pinnacle of exploratory entertainments for curious and inquiring but somewhat enfeebled minds.
When I was in the Boy Scouts of America for a blessedly brief period of time back in Pine Grove, PA, we had one senior scout who was the very epitome of the type Mythbusters appeals to — the stupid person who cannot be told anything but dangerously believes he has a talent for empiricism.
So he had done a bit of trivial reading about white phosphorus and convinced a science teacher in the school district to give him a bit of it as part of an exciting chemistry experiment he wished to show the troop in its weekly meeting at a church. Of course, this was back when school labs still were allowed to have interesting and potentially dangerous elements and compounds as part of science education.
The splinter of phosporus was brought in under water and the fellow explained how it would burn when exposed to air. He had a C02 fire extinguisher and I raised my hand to explain that white phosphorus would indeed catch fire. And then it would generate a choking smoke in the small room where we were and that carbon dioxide would only put it out briefly. When the fire extinguisher was turned off or had run out of CO2, the white phosphorus would again burn.
“Shut up, Smith,” he said.
As predicted, the white phosphorus caught fire and begin throwing off a good cloud of choking smoke. The CO2 fire extinguisher was employed, fruitlessly. Smoke filled the room, coughing broke out, and the church was evacuated. Someone eventually extinguished the burning phosphorus — a lot of it had been consumed — by covering it with sand or a non-flammable powder of some kind.
Perfect for Mythbusters, forty years too early.