FWD: Toilet Brush Warning wins "Wacky Warning" Contest

....Just to show Herb why lawsuits should only be allowed for *serious*
issues:

------------

Jan 6, 7:33 AM EST

Toilet Brush Warning Wins Consumer Award

By DAVID N. GOODMAN
Associated Press Writer

DETROIT (AP) -- The sign on the toilet brush says it best: "Do not use
for personal hygiene."

That admonition was the winner of an anti-lawsuit group's contest for
the wackiest consumer warning label of the year.

The sponsor, Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch, says the goal is "to reveal
how lawsuits, and concern about lawsuits, have created a need for
common sense warnings on products."

The $500 first prize went to Ed Gyetvai, of Oldcastle, Ontario, who
submitted the toilet-brush label. A $250 second prize went to Matt
Johnson, of Naperville, Ill., for a label on a children's scooter that
said, "This product moves when used."

A $100 third prize went to Ann Marie Taylor, of Camden, S.C., who
submitted a warning from a digital thermometer that said, "Once used
rectally, the thermometer should not be used orally."

This year's contest coincides with a drive by President Bush and
congressional Republicans to put caps and other limits on jury awards
in liability cases.

"Warning labels are a sign of our lawsuit-plagued times," said group
President Robert Dorigo Jones. "From the moment we raise our head in
the morning off pillows that bear those famous Do Not Remove warnings,
to when we drop back in bed at night, we are overwhelmed with
warnings."

The leader of a group that opposes the campaign to limit lawsuits
admits that while some warning labels may seem stupid, even dumb
warnings can do good.

"There are many cases of warning labels saving lives," said Joanne
Doroshow, executive director of the Center for Justice and Democracy
in New York. "It's much better to be very cautious ... than to be
afraid of being made fun of by a tort reform group."

The Wacky Warning Label Contest is in its eighth year.

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OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

In article ,
OM om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_researc h_facility.org
wrote:

...Just to show Herb why lawsuits should only be allowed for *serious*
issues:

:-p

I won't miss Usenet too much while we're on the cruise ship next week.

--
Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D., GPG Key ID: BBF6FC1C
"Pray: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single
petitioner confessedly unworthy." -- Ambrose Bierce
http://dischordia.blogspot.com
http://www.angryherb.net

So how much did NASA pay for the toilet brush on the Shuttle and Space
Station?

Was the first space toilet brush developed on the Skylab?

Did they do a RFQ for the toilet brush or just fill out a purchase
order?

Does the Russian portion of the station use a metric toilet brush?

In an emergency could it be used for personal hygiene?

Do they get new toilet brushes with each Progress flight and dispose of
the used ones in the reentering Progress?

Do the toilet brushes have a "Remove Before Using Toilet" warning tag?
Inquiring minds want to know.

;-)

--
Rusty

"Rusty" wrote in message
oups.com...

snip

Was the first space toilet brush developed on the Skylab?


Way before then - the brush that turned up on Skylab was actually a Gemini
model, though not a flown item.

In 1969, an Apollo-era space toilet brush was used as an improvised APS ARM
circuit breaker prior to Eagle's lunar lift-off. The year after, during the
flight of Apollo 13, it became apparent that the CM and LM brushes were
incompatible (the CM brush being designed for a square hole), and a
jury-rigged adapter had to be created on the fly. Additional LM brushes were
carried on subsequent flights.

There are doubtless many other such stories.
--
Dave Kenworthy
-----------------------------
Changes aren't permanent - but change is!

On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 00:11:25 +0000 (UTC), "Dave Kenworthy"
wrote:

In 1969, an Apollo-era space toilet brush was used as an improvised APS ARM
circuit breaker prior to Eagle's lunar lift-off. The year after, during the
flight of Apollo 13, it became apparent that the CM and LM brushes were
incompatible (the CM brush being designed for a square hole), and a
jury-rigged adapter had to be created on the fly. Additional LM brushes were
carried on subsequent flights.

There are doubtless many other such stories.

....Yeah, for starters Al Bean left the brush outside the LM in the
sun, and it melted. Later, the A14 STB failed to operate properly
according to standard procedures. The crew had to hold the brush
stationary, while the CMP used his thruster quads to vibrate the CSM
stack with sufficient force to dislodge the fecal matter that the
brush refused to budge. On A17, the STB actually broke, and the CDR
had to repair it with two C-clamps and some duct tape.

....On the other hand, the STB had one serious success story. On A15,
it was used in conjunction with a Falcon feather to prove Gallileo's
theory that gravity was a constant.

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 03:11:18 -0600, OM
om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_researc h_facility.org
wrote:

On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 00:11:25 +0000 (UTC), "Dave Kenworthy"
wrote:

In 1969, an Apollo-era space toilet brush was used as an improvised APS ARM
circuit breaker prior to Eagle's lunar lift-off. The year after, during the
flight of Apollo 13, it became apparent that the CM and LM brushes were
incompatible (the CM brush being designed for a square hole), and a
jury-rigged adapter had to be created on the fly. Additional LM brushes were
carried on subsequent flights.

There are doubtless many other such stories.

...Yeah, for starters Al Bean left the brush outside the LM in the
sun, and it melted. Later, the A14 STB failed to operate properly
according to standard procedures. The crew had to hold the brush
stationary, while the CMP used his thruster quads to vibrate the CSM
stack with sufficient force to dislodge the fecal matter that the
brush refused to budge. On A17, the STB actually broke, and the CDR
had to repair it with two C-clamps and some duct tape.

...On the other hand, the STB had one serious success story. On A15,
it was used in conjunction with a Falcon feather to prove Gallileo's
theory that gravity was a constant.

OM

Then there was all that development effort in the late 1970's to
develop a reusable STB for use on the Space Shuttle. Of course it
turned out to cost so much to refurbish between flights that it would
have been cheaper to have just used the expendible Apollo era brush.
Current plans are to retire the reusable STB by 2010 in favor of a STB
that can be used in Earth orbit, on the surface of the Moon, and
possibly on Mars.

Kelly McDonald

In article ,
OM om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_researc h_facility.org writes:
On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 00:11:25 +0000 (UTC), "Dave Kenworthy"
wrote:

In 1969, an Apollo-era space toilet brush was used as an improvised APS ARM
circuit breaker prior to Eagle's lunar lift-off. The year after, during the
flight of Apollo 13, it became apparent that the CM and LM brushes were
incompatible (the CM brush being designed for a square hole), and a
jury-rigged adapter had to be created on the fly. Additional LM brushes were
carried on subsequent flights.

There are doubtless many other such stories.

...Yeah, for starters Al Bean left the brush outside the LM in the
sun, and it melted. Later, the A14 STB failed to operate properly
according to standard procedures. The crew had to hold the brush
stationary, while the CMP used his thruster quads to vibrate the CSM
stack with sufficient force to dislodge the fecal matter that the
brush refused to budge. On A17, the STB actually broke, and the CDR
had to repair it with two C-clamps and some duct tape.

...On the other hand, the STB had one serious success story. On A15,
it was used in conjunction with a Falcon feather to prove Gallileo's
theory that gravity was a constant.

You did miss the mishap with Apollo 10's LM STB. Due to an
interruption of the checklist during the "Switch the detachable
wwarning label around" experiment, buth the LMP and CDR swapped the
label position, resulting in the brush tumbling during the performance
of a manual hand-off.

--
Pete Stickney

Without data, all you have are opinions

OM wrote:
[snip]
...On the other hand, the STB had one serious success story. On A15,
it was used in conjunction with a Falcon feather to prove Gallileo's
theory that gravity was a constant.

Don't forget about the DUBPT. NASA spent millions of
dollars developing a toilet plunger for use in zero-g for
the Apollo program, the Russians used a pencil. A
malfunction in the DUBPT during the Apollo 8 flight forced
NASA into a redesign of the system, leading to the DUBPT
Mark II for the Shuttle program, though a prototype of the
Mark II was used on ASTP.

In article , Christopher M. Jones
wrote:

A
malfunction in the DUBPT during the Apollo 8 flight forced
NASA into a redesign of the system, leading to the DUBPT
Mark II for the Shuttle program, though a prototype of the
Mark II was used on ASTP.


Lies, all lies. The so-called Apollo toilet brush was actually a movie
prop filmed in a soundstage in Arizona.

Ironically enough, the only real Apollo spin-off in widespread use is
the modern low-flow flush-twice toilet, whcih was developed to meet the
plumbing demands of the huge film crew in the parched Arizona desert.
The cargo saucers they used to bring water from area 51 didn't have
enough capacity to allow 10-gallon flushes, so people were asked to
either use the urinals only or to hold it as long as they could.
(That's the real reason there were no female astronauts.)

--
David M. Palmer (formerly @clark.net, @ematic.com)

David M. Palmer wrote...
The cargo saucers they used to bring water from area 51 didn't have
enough capacity to allow 10-gallon flushes, so people were asked to
either use the urinals only or to hold it as long as they could.
(That's the real reason there were no female astronauts.)

Of course, that was also the real reason for Fred Haise's kidney infection.

- Peter