Quote:
Originally Posted by DamianJ
But what goes up must come down, and farmers in haparticular have become increasingly haconcerned that livestock might swallow a lantern's wire or habamboo frame, or, even worse, that fires might break out in hay barns.
"If swallowed, the wire could puncture the stomach lining, and in some cases this could prove fatal," says Mike Thomas, a NFU spokesman. "There's also a good chance that the wire could get wrapped around an animal's foot and become embedded in the skin, which would be terribly painful."
Elsewhere, coastguards say lanterns, which can travel for several kilometres and to an haaltitude of 1,000m before the candle burns out, are routinely mistaken for distress flares.
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Poor, poor farmers. Animals MIGHT swallow bamboo? This differs from any other form of twig in a field exactly how? So the wire might not be so great, but most live stock is pretty good at eating around old bits of barbed wire. Fires MIGHT break out in haybarns? How many have? Exactly none so far would be my guess. It's not like UK farmers have a particular aversion to fire in the first place, stubble burning had to be banned to get them to stop setting whole fields on fire.
And this from farmers who are usually queuing up to be brutal to badgers and their own livestock. Only last week there was an item about cutting off piglets tails and teeth with blunt scissors in the news in the UK. Hmmm, how about a comment on that Mr NFU spokesman?
And as for mistaken for flares. Oh yes, we have many flares let off in distress in the UK, especially on those calm days when we might launch balloons. But yes, I'm sure our rescue services are that crap and could mistake balloons for flares in much the same way they can arses for elbows.
I'm going to chalk up the menance of balloons in this case to the NFU taking the chance to whine and no doubt angle for some cash and the Guardian to take its usual stance and want EVERYTHING banned.
As the photos show, somewhere in the world they managed to launch about 5000 in one go and clearly got away with it without too many fatalites.
And to put the risk into prespective, think for a second how many fireworks get launched Nov 5 on bonfire night. Anyone ever heard of someone being hit or their car dented by a falling rocket?
There are places where lighting anything and letting it float about randomly during the dry season would be retarded, but the UK isn't one of them.