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[SalmonGod]

I say water because it's more multi-purpose.  It might not be as effective as milk for flushing chemicals, or lime juice for turning a bandana into a breathing filter, but it will still do both to some degree and it's an essential that you need to carry anyway.  I'd rather have a less effective but more multi-purpose liquid that I don't need to go digging around in my bag for among multiple bottles of stuff.  Instead of milk, I'd probably take a bar of soap for washing pepper spray off skin.  It's more convenient to carry, only slightly slower to apply, won't get used up as quickly, and it probably doesn't neutralize as well as milk but it will wash the stuff away.

Also, not a single source I've read has ever said that you should use milk or anything else strange to flush out your eyes.  For clearing your mouth and throat and washing it off your skin, yes, but the only recommendations I've seen for eyes are rapid blinking or thorough flushing with water.

[palsch]

This did the rounds a while ago. It's targeted against tear gas, but supposedly works against pepper spray.

The only disadvantage is a decent mask and spray bottle would make you a target for police. Coming prepared to spray a 'chemical agent' is going to be their grounds for arresting you. Those who come prepared are obviously troublemakers.

More commonly I've seen a bandanna or other improvised mask (preferably multiple bandanna-like cloths to use for multiple purposes or help others) along with a sports bottle or similar pre-mixed. I've also seen baby shampoo recommended as used in some hospitals.

I would be extremely careful about using anything to wash out eyes though. Anything other than saline solution (eg, water with a pinch of salt to simulate tears) is probably going to cause irritation itself, even if less than the pepper spray being left alone. Minimal use of any chemicals is best (eg, use an eye-dropper or other controlled amount, or fine mist from a spray), and flushing the eye afterwards is a good idea. You can buy sterile eye-wash formulas, but again that's making the (legal) error of coming prepared for trouble. Saline or just water work as well. Alcohol based liquids should not be used.

These Medic Wiki pages seem to be used as a clearing house for this information, although they are pretty light on citations.

[KaelGotDwarves]

Here's what my practising Doctor friend has to say on the subject

"Z. O. M. G. If anyone really wants to know the molecular biology of how pepper spray works, I can explain. But basically, it opens a heat receptor, so it makes it feel like burning. But at sufficient concentrations it can cause nerve damage. It's certainly better than bullets or batons, but that doesn't make it "a food product." That's like calling heroin a "natural product from flowers.""

[SalmonGod]

These Medic Wiki pages seem to be used as a clearing house for this information, although they are pretty light on citations.

Great information.  I'll be sure to remember this.  Thanks.

[lordcooper]

Spencer Bachus caught insider trading and betting against the stock market

[Kogan Loloklam]

A quick link to Milk as an Antidote

Against some forms of irritant agents, water will spread the irritant without eliminating any of it. Water is bad. Do not use water. Toweling the stuff off gently to prevent it from spreading further and giving it time is more effective than water.

Exception: Some sprays do not have an oil base. With these water might work as well as milk for getting it off the body. Water does not have the same mucusy structure that milk does, which means water doesn't bind the agent and make it inactive. THIS MEANS IT WILL STILL SPREAD THE AGENT EVEN AS IT WASHES IT OFF.
Milk isn't a miracle cure. Being sprayed will still hurt. There is no way to get around that short of coming prepared for trouble. But it DOES work, and it's safer on the eyes than other cures like Baking Soda.

For proof of Milk's effectiveness, apply very hot sauce to your tongue. Then apply water. Repeat the experiment in a few hours, but apply milk instead.

Do not use water. It does not work and will make it feel worse, as well as spread the effect.

[MonkeyHead]

Yea, most of the chemicals that operate to mess around with sensory perceptions arent water soluble (chilli is the most well kown example). Thats how milk/soap works - the fat is the solvent to disperse the nasty chemicals. So, yea, any fatty liquid would work.... gravy anyone?

[Luke_Prowler]

Why not just liquid soap? Certainly lasts longer than milk

[MonkeyHead]

Possibly too alkaline, leading to more burnyness?

[Neonivek]

The problem with Pepper Sprey is similar, though not as exaggerated, as the problems with Tasers.

The image that it is perfectly safe is so pervasive that the police often use it as a compliance tool.

To me the use of Pepper Sprey and Tasers should be used anytime a police officer would be justified in using physical force (for example anytime a police officer would be justified in just up and smacking you into submission). It just doesn't work out that way.

[RedKing]

I'd like to see someone (or several someones) carry a small but potent hand fan to a demonstration, to blow the tear gas and pepper spray back towards the cops. Seems like a fairly cheap deterrent.

[Phmcw]

Force must not be a compliance tool. It is only acceptable in self defense, and to protect other. Well the notable exception would be arresting someone.

[palsch]

Spencer Bachus caught insider trading and betting against the stock market

I've seen the technicalities of this explained elsewhere. What he did was grossly unethical, but not illegal as such.

"Insider trading" requires being an insider acting on non-public information. That means a corporate officer, director or sizeable owner. If I were an officer in a company and heard news that would affect the company's stock price drastically I couldn't trade based on that information until it was made public.

However, if I were careless about, say, letting someone read the email containing that information over my shoulder on the train, that person could trade on that information entirely legally. The information might not yet be public, so still illegal for insiders to trade on, but someone who isn't a strictly defined 'insider' can trade on it fully legally.

Bachus wasn't an insider when he made those trades, even if they were based on non-public information. That makes what he did legal.

On the other hand I'd be disturbed if there wasn't at least an ethics investigation into this. The idea of shorting companies for personal gain based on non-public information is disturbing on the face of it. Shorting companies in the face of a massive economic disaster that negatively effected millions across the world is worse still. Coming from someone who so passionately fought reforms to stop similar events in the future it just crosses into comic book absurdity.

[RedKing]

Comic book absurdity, you say?

We already have "The Super Committee". It's kind of like the Wonder Twins, only more useless and with more old white guys. Acutally, Gleek is marginally more useful right now than Congress. At least he can produce buckets out of nowhere. We could revive the economy selling buckets to China.

[Aqizzar]

Occupy Dallas first got kicked off Dealy Plaza (the JFK place) when they got too big for it and wanted to set up tents.  Then they got kicked off of Pioneer Park (nice place) because... nobody really knows.  Then last week they got kicked out of the City Hall Plaza, because supposedly it was becoming a crime risk (which is doubly laughable to Dallasites, because the Hall's back parking lot is one of the best places in the city to get mugged anyway).

Turns out, what they really needed was to clear out City Hall Plaza to set up the annual Thanksgiving "Turkey Trot" and benefit concert... sponsored by Capital One Bank.  Hilarious.