What would happen if you stuck your hand in the beam of the Large Hadron Collider?

In short: no one is really sure what would happen. The general consensus is that it probably wouldn't be good.

But here's a post from the Bad Astronomy blog and video that explores the subject! Well, at least the first four minutes explores sticking your hand in the beam, the remainder is on some interesting stuff if you're a science geek.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/09/21/dont-cross-the-lhc-stream/

http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/09/25/2150228/Dont-Cross-the-LHC-Stream-Maybe

UK tax authorities pursuing tax evaders with stolen data

"a former staff member at HSBC's Swiss division stole highly sensitive data belonging to 15,000 high net-worth account holders earlier this year and fled to France.

The list was passed to the French authorities, who in turn handed the relevant details to HMRC.

HSBC fired the employee and the Swiss authorities are pursuing criminal action against him but cannot extradite him from France for legal reasons."

I find this amusing. Some workerbee steals a list of clients with lots of money in a Swiss bank account, flees to France, and French police give the list to UK tax division. So now people who are hiding money to avoid taxes are going to be chased down using stolen data!

Apparently Germany is even paying for such data:
"It also follows similar efforts by Germany in 2008 against wealthy residents suspected of using banks in neighbouring Liechtenstein, another tax haven.

Germany's finance ministry paid an informant a reported 5 million euros (£4.2m) for a stolen computer disc containing the names of hundreds of clients at a wealth management firm. "

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11411840

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/09/26/0145215/UK-Pursues-Tax-Evaders-Using-Stolen-Bank-Details

But the best part is a comment on Slashdot:
If you stay in the hotel, you pay the bill. If you don't stay in the hotel you don't pay the bill.
If you stay in the country, you pay the taxes. If you don't stay in the country you don't pay the taxes.

You are free to stay in a cheaper hotel, with less services, if one will take you.
You are free to stay in a cheaper country, with less services, if one will take you.

What you don't get to do is stay in a 5 star hotel/country and pay the bill of a one star hotel/country.

We need tax reform. Part of that needs to be that big corporations (Microsoft, Halliburton, etc.) should pay their fair share. If corporations paid more of their fair share, then average workers could pay less which would more likely lead to more spending on their part of the goods made by the corporations.

But no! That might make sense!