A modest suggestion -- Put saltpeter into the water supply in Washington

[Armstead]

Just when you thought it was safe to jump into the Issues again.....More distractions...Sex. sex,sex.

According to lore, Saltpeter used to be put in the food at Boys Prep Schools to curb their adolescent sex drives....Whether true or not, maybe it would be worth checking into so these High Muckity Muck Adolescent Politicians, Generals and Officials would concentrate on doing their jobs for the country instead of their personal conquests that so often lead to national embarrassments and distractions.

[NoPasaran]

1. Water? People drink water out of the tap?

[Armstead]

2. Maybe include the bottled water supply too.....Localized distribution.

[excringency]

3. When I was in basic training

in the army (years ago) they dumped Saltpeter in the vat of scrambled eggs cooking in the mess hall. I guess they've stopped doing that.

[Armstead]

4. Maybe they should just serve it in the Officers Dining Rooms

[Lasher]

5. This is a myth.

Snopes article here: http://www.snopes.com/military/saltpeter.asp

[RevStPatrick]

6. I've got a better idea...

Why don't we make it so that people who want to get laid don't have to worry about their careers getting destroyed because they are attracted to someone and want to fuck? Why don't we work to make it so that the 50-something-year-old most powerful people on the planet can relax and get a little nookie without being concerned that it's going to be a huge scandal the ruins lives and puts people in jeopardy?

Why would you opt for MORE sexual repression, and CHEMICAL repression of all things? I know you're just joking here, and that's fine, but I do think that we need to do something so that we can get to a point where people who want to fuck can fuck, and it remains nobody else's business.

The issue here is that security and protocol might have been breached, and secrets might have gotten into the hands of a journalist. Or whatever. Frankly, I'm not following the details of this story. But I don't think we should make this about sex and then try to find ways of repressing sex even more as a society...

[Armstead]

8. Yes it was just a joke, but...

...I agree that what people do in that private realm shouldn't be anybody else's business but the people involved -- However,
given the social reality about how such things are viewed, the fact that these people are so arrogant and stupid as to risk it all to satisfy their immediate drives has to do with their basic character and intelligence.

We should not care, but unfortunately people do -- and so the people in power ought to exercise a little self-restraint and judgement at least while they are on the public stage, both for their own self-protection and to avoid creating these public circuses that distract from the nation's real business.

[dipsydoodle]

7. Thought that was bromide.

KNO3 is however good for making up stuff to go bang as I learned when I was 12 years old..

[Armstead]

9. I did that too when I was a kid...but all it really did was create a big fizzle of sparks

[dipsydoodle]

10. Not with suger and charcoal it didn't.

Ithink the best we managed was six foot hole in someone's vegetable patch. There was however nearly a very nasty incident when one us of decided to make a cannon out of a bicycle frame to fire a ball bearing. He failed to account for the fact that the interior of the tubing is neither smooth nor necessarily parallel - don't try that at home.

[Armstead]

11. we used sulphur instead of sugar

Eventually we gave up and tried to use the material from caps instead

[dipsydoodle]

12. material from caps. ?

that reminds me of cracking of the heads off red matches, grinding them up. and the using the powder either inside a key with a nail in it or two large bolts screwed into both sides of a nut.

There were also some stones some of the kids bought back from France. They were coated with what I would guess was a similar material to caps. All that was necessary was to bounce one down the length of an empty corridor while classes were in progress - huge bang on each bounce.

[4th law of robotics]

13. We could forbid women from being out in public without a male guardian

husband/father/brother/etc.

That would do it too.

/notice how the OP subtly puts the entire blame for affairs on the man? I see no indication that this relationship was non-consensual.

[Armstead]

14. Oh lighten up....