Friday - January 08, 2010
No Nukes, just drywall
APOLLO BEACH, Florida — More than 200 manatees are wintering in a balmy canal outside a power plant, the latest exotic Florida animals seeking refuge from the state’s frigid temperatures.
Giant eagle rays and spinner sharks joined them in the 70-degree Fahrenheit waters Thursday as onlookers watched them frolic.
“This is a spa for them,” said Wendy Anastasiou, an environmental specialist for the Tampa Electric Company.
With temperatures well below normal, some less resourceful animals needed help from humans to survive.
Animals that live in the water weren’t the only ones affected. Iguanas fell out of trees in South Florida because the cold-blooded reptiles become immobilized and lose their grip when the temperature falls into the 40s or below.
Things are less dire for the manatees, which are not in immediate danger. On Thursday, the gentle giants at the Big Bend Power Plant in Apollo Beach — some weighing 3,000 pounds — floated slowly to the water’s surface to sip air. Every so often, one would surface on its belly, making the crowd on a viewing platform ooh and ahhh.
Anastasiou said it’s typical for the giant, vegetarian mammals to seek warmer water in the winter when the temperature of Tampa Bay dips below 68 degrees. Even when it is chilly, the sea cows swim out to the Gulf of Mexico to graze on grass during the day. During cold spells, the animals congregate in massive numbers, which is impressive for the humans who flock to the viewing centers to gawk.
I looked up Big Bend power plant, and DAMN. It’s a plain old coal fired generating plant. I was really hoping that it would be a nuke plant. Which would explain the warmer water nearby. Cooling tower outflow and all that. And that would have been the all-time bitch slap against the greenies: precious endangered manatees saved by nuclear energy. What an awesome coupe that would have been. But alas, it is not to be.
However, it looks like the Big Bend plant is doing a pretty great job at reducing pollution, being as Clean Coal as they can:
Big Bend Power Station meets strict environmental regulations through the use of flue gas desulfurization systems or “scrubbers,” which remove sulfur dioxide produced when coal is burned.
The scrubber for Big Bend Unit Four began operation in 1984, and since 1995, has simultaneously scrubbed Unit Three as well. The scrubber for Big Bend Units One and Two began operation at the end of 1999. The scrubber system complies with standards set by the U.S. Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, and removes 95 percent of sulfur dioxide from all four units.
...
By using a variety of proven technologies, Tampa Electric will continue to significantly reduce nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and sulfur dioxide emissions from Big Bend Power Station. Planned actions include:
* Combustion modifications to all four units and evaluation of the effects of each modification on nitrogen oxides emissions. By the end of 2010, nitrogen oxides emissions from Big Bend Power Station will be reduced by approximately 80 percent from 1998 emission levels through the installation of a Selective Catalytic Reduction system on each unit.
* Optimizing electrostatic precipitators to minimize emissions of particulate matter from the stacks was completed in 2004, resulting in a reduction of approximately *71 percent when compared to 1998 levels.
* Further reduction of sulfur dioxide emissions by investing more than $23 million in scrubber upgrades, resulting in a reduction of over 88 percent from 1998 levels.
But the neatest part is that the process of capturing the pollutants actually creates gypsum. So what once went up the chimney as smoke is now a salable by-product. Neat! Granted, gypsum isn’t worth very much, but anything is better than nothing. And it’s nice to see what level of pollution these evil coal plants actually generate. Doesn’t sound like they need shutting down, bankrupting, or another 50 years of anit-pollution research. It seems to me they’re doing a pretty darn good job already.
Recyclable byproducts
During the scrubbing process, coal combustion gases are sprayed with a mixture of water and limestone. Sulfur oxides react with the spray to form gypsum. Tampa Electric recycles virtually all of its gypsum.
Gypsum is used locally in wallboard (drywall) for construction, in cement and concrete for construction and in agriculture as a soil nutrient or fertilizer
Fly ash, a fine particulate material that results from the combustion of coal and is collected in the electrostatic precipitators in all four Big Bend Units, is used in the cement and concrete industries.
Slag, which is collected at the bottom of the furnace, is a hard, glass-like material with many reuses, including in cement. Its hard quality makes it valuable to use as a high-velocity blast material to clean ships, storage tanks and other large metal surfaces.
Posted by Drew458
on 01/08/2010 at 11:04 PM
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Permalink • FRANCE WILL BAN THE BURKA. An insult to fashion is an insult to France. Vive la France!
French draft bill to fine burqa-wearing women
(AFP)
PARIS — Muslim women who wear the full Islamic veil in France will face a possible 750-euro (1,000-dollar) fine, according to a draft bill unveiled Thursday by the leader of the parliamentary majority.
THE STYLISH AND WELL DRESSED MUSLIM LADY OF 2010 is wearing the traditional black sheet but giving a nod to design, displays some gold pattern on her up to date dress for a casual look. This also doubles in these hectic times as formal wear or maternity wear. A real fashion plate is our lady.
Jean-Francois Cope, who heads the governing UMP party in the National Assembly, told Le Figaro newspaper’s weekly magazine that men who force their wives to wear the burqa or niqab could face an even heavier fine.
“The law will address an issue of security,” Cope said in an interview with the magazine.
“The proposed measure would prohibit the covering of the face in public places and on the streets, with the exception of special cultural events or carnivals.”
The draft legislation will be presented in the next two weeks and should come up for debate in parliament after the March regional elections, he said.
The majority leader, who is also openly campaigning to succeed President Nicolas Sarkozy as the right-wing candidate for the presidency in 2017, said the burqa must be banned to defend women’s rights.
“We can measure the modernity of a society by the way it treats and respects women,” he said.
France’s political establishment is divided on whether to ban the burqa, with the opposition Socialists this week saying that it opposed a law even though Muslim women must be discouraged from wearing the full veil.
The burqa debate has heated up ahead of the release at the end of the month of a much-awaited report by a parliamentary panel that has conducted six months of hearings on the issue.
Many politicians from the left and right have cautioned that a draconian law banning the head-to-toe veil would be difficult to enforce and probably face a challenge in the European rights court.
Sarkozy himself has said that the burqa is not welcome in France but has not stated publicly whether legislation should be enacted.
Critics argue that a specific law enacted to ban the full veil would be tantamount to using a sledgehammer to swat a fly. Only 1,900 women wear the full veil in France, according to the interior ministry.
In the interview, Cope argued that a law would act as a deterrent by sending a “clear message” that France will not allow women to fully cover themselves.
Posted by peiper
on 01/08/2010 at 11:35 AM
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Permalink • Christianity’s survival may depend on something as prosaic as immigration control
This is how the entire line is supposed to read. But you get the idea. And the article it comes from is quite interesting. You don’t have to be religious to appreciate this. Take a look.
Christianity’s survival as a mass movement may depend on something as prosaic as immigration control
The church fights back against Islamification
Lord Carey’s brave call to limit immigration is a timely defence of Christian values.
By Damian Thompson
08 Jan 2010We have had to wait decades for this moment, but it has finally happened. A leading British clergyman has said something sensible about immigration.
Lord Carey of Clifton, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, this week signed a declaration by the Cross Party Group on Balanced Migration calling for an urgent tightening of borders to stop the British population reaching 70 million by 2029. He also gave an interview yesterday in which he called for a tougher Church. “We Christians are very often so soft that we allow other people to walk over us, and we are not as tough in what we want, in expressing our beliefs, because we do not want to upset other people,” he said.
Tougher church … people walking all over us … controls on immigration: it really is not all that difficult to join the dots. Later in the interview, Lord Carey almost joined them for us, suggesting that there might be a “points system” based on respect for Britain’s Christian heritage.
Some of Lord Carey’s critics will accuse him of blowing a dog whistle to racists. That is nonsense. Lord Carey is a veteran anti-racist: he enjoys the sort of following among African evangelicals that Bill Clinton did among black Americans. But if Lord Carey were accused of whistling to Christians worried by the prospect of millions of dogmatic Muslims in Britain, then he would find it difficult to rebut the charge. Politicised Islam is at the forefront of his mind: he knows that Britain’s evangelical Christians are fed up with being told to develop ever closer ties with their Muslim neighbours.
These evangelicals see Muslim communities that are increasingly hard to distinguish from ghettos; whose young men are sympathetic towards Islamist insurgents; and whose elders enforce a Sharia law that bullies young British Muslim women at home and persecutes Christians abroad. (Nothing, not even the issue of homosexuality, has done more to damage the authority of Dr Rowan Williams in the conservative provinces of the Anglican Communion than his idiotic equivocation on British Sharia.)
Britain’s black and Asian Christian leaders will support Lord Carey in this controversy; many of them have seen Islamism at work in their home countries. Only one Church of England bishop has resigned his see in protest at Church leaders’ feebleness in the face of Islamism, and he is an immigrant: Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester. In contrast, the rest of the hierarchy, together with all the Roman Catholic bishops of England and Wales, still adhere to the old orthodoxy that immigration is by definition a glorious blessing because it “enriches” our culture.
In Europe, however, many Catholic bishops never really subscribed to that orthodoxy in the first place, and now they are talking openly about the coming “Islamification” of Europe. Yesterday, just as Lord Carey was issuing his own warning, Cardinal Miloslav Vlk, the Archbishop of Prague, marked his retirement with a melodramatic prophecy. “Unless the Christians wake up, life may be Islamised and Christianity will not have the strength to imprint its character on the life of people, not to say society,” he said.
The Cardinal is right, but only up to a point. The Islamification of parts of Europe is indeed under way. As Christopher Caldwell says in his book Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, Muslims “vie for dominance” in Rotterdam, Strasbourg, Marseilles, suburbs of Paris and Berlin, Bradford, Leicester, the periphery of Manchester and east London.
Where Cardinal Vlk displays naivety is in his proposed remedy: he is optimistic that the Church can persuade the West to reject the empty secularism that has created a Europe-wide vacuum filled by people of another faith.
The message that “secularism” is the real enemy of Christianity is parroted by liberal bishops everywhere. Although they may be horrified by Cardinal Vlk’s talk of Islamification, they share his belief that the essential division in the world is between “people of faith” and rootless materialists. Pope John Paul II also subscribed to that world-view. But Pope Benedict XVI, significantly, does not. Benedict wants to convince secular-minded people that, in an odd way, they are already part of the Christian flock, because many of their ideals are rooted in the ethics of Christianity.
In other words, the Church’s respect for the dignity of the human person is broadly shared by those secular intellectuals committed to a free society. The Pope recognises this, which is why he has spent so much time talking to them; so does Bishop Nazir-Ali, whose friends include atheist thinkers whose respect for the West’s Christian heritage is far greater than that of Muslim community leaders or their multiculturalist allies.
In the long term, the future of Western civilisation can be secured only by an alliance between Christians and secularists against the totalitarian ideology of Islamism. That is a strange prospect; and even more uncomfortable is the realisation that Christianity’s survival as a mass movement may depend on something as prosaic as immigration control. But that is surely what Lord Carey is hinting at, and it is brave of him to do so.
Now the big question is , will anyone listen? This island’s immigration is a mess and worse, as LyndonB has commented on more then once. And he is someone in a very good position to know the truth of it.
The bleeding heart hand wringers on the left even find reasons not to deport those who are illegal if their home country is, they will claim, a danger to them. They didn’t even deport airplane hijackers a couple of years ago.
As a bystander here looking on, it does seem that like the USA, it’s the Christian community who bend over backwards and the Christian community who make allowances for others and the Christian community who MUST do all the understanding and finally, the Christian community must never be seen to offend anyone. EVER!
It has to be a frustrating experience being a devout Christian these days.
Posted by peiper
on 01/08/2010 at 09:01 AM
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Permalink • Cops spend way too much time talking to white,middle class, white folks. Hey, I just report it.
Do any of you recall a previous post I did about a national park? The subject of which was, “Too many middle aged,middle class white people used the park.”
That seemed to upset the PC multi-cultural powers that be and so they closed it. I don’t have any idea of what happed after that.
Well, this story IS NOT related to that but the idea that the police are talking to ,,, “too many white, middle class people” is in the news. What is it with these ppl here? Something in the water? In their soup? What?
I spotted the article originally in the Telegraph this morning. It’s interesting to see how the different papers cover the same topic, even when both are thought to be somewhat conservative in their editorial opinions. But no matter. Once again there isn’t a link I could find to the Telegraph version.
Thing I found interesting was that in the Telegraph, which is less a tabloid then the Mail, which is far more right wing then the Telegraph, well the Telegraph had the statement about white folks almost at the top of their article while the Mail had the statement buried way down in the page.
The Telegraph headline read:
NEW POLICE TACTIC WITH PUBLIC. DON’T TALK ABOUT CRIME.
And they must stop meeting too many white people
So here’s the version as printed in the Daily Mail.
Don’t talk about crime, police are told… it might scare the public!By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 10:12 PM on 07th January 2010
Police officers were once seen as reassuring figures, like the fatherly Dixon of Dock Green.
Now it seems they are more likely to have a quite different effect - so much so that officers have been told not to talk about crime in case they frighten the public.
Home Office officials say discussing crime rates may make it less likely that the public will think officers are doing a good job. And that will make it harder for forces to hit the Government’s target for increasing public confidence in the police.
As a result, they are told to keep quiet at community meetings. Last night, officers dismissed the instruction as ‘ridiculous’.
The Home Office research report says that when officers highlight crime and anti-social behaviour problems at community meetings it can lead to ‘ feelings of fear’ among the public.
Public confidence in the police - currently standing at 49 per cent - needs to be boosted to 60 per cent by 2012 to meet a Home Office target.
Shsh, don’t say too much: Officers have been told not to ‘promote fear’ when chatting to people on the street
But the study says that to achieve this target police officers need to ‘avoid four main pitfalls’. The first is highlighting crime and anti-social behaviour ‘too much’.
The report says: ‘Dialogue centred on the apparent pervasiveness of crime and insecurity may actually stimulate feelings of threat or fear, and in turn lower opinions of the police. There is also evidence that if people feel increasingly insecure they are likely to blame the police.’
Pitfall two is ‘talking down’ the police service. The report says police officers were the most likely of all public servants to ‘talk negatively’ about their job to the public.
Pitfall three is treating community policing as a ‘waste of time’ and pitfall four is not ensuring diversity in community meetings, which the study says are mainly attended by ‘older, white, middle-class citizens’.
Detective Constable Alex Challenor, of Lancashire Constabulary, said: ‘I can understand us being told to be careful about what we put on Facebook and things like that, but trying to control what we say to people in the pub is ridiculous.’
The editor of Police Review, Chris Herbert, said: ‘It is hard to know whether it is depressing or funny.’
Last night a Home Office spokesman said: ‘It is a core duty of the police to discuss crime with their local communities and there is no suggestion that the Government is telling them they should not.
‘This research is a tool, not an order, and shows that there is a balance to be found in how police communicate with their communities to build public confidence and tackle crime.’
Posted by peiper
on 01/08/2010 at 03:29 AM
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Permalink • Thursday - January 07, 2010
He’s Baaaaack
Steve Crowder returns from his holidays, rested and ready to have at it once again.
Rats, and here I thought he was going to call for a Crusade! That would be ... too honest?
Posted by Drew458
on 01/07/2010 at 08:24 PM
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Permalink • Splodey Dopes, Round 957
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN)—Fourteen suspected terrorists died Tuesday night when the bus they rigged with explosives blew up prematurely, police said.
The explosion occurred as the suspects were riding the bus in the province of Kunduz, said police chief Abdul Raziq Yaqobi.
Yaqobi said the suspects wanted to attack Afghan police or foreign soldiers.
h/t to Jumping In Pools, and to Front Page Magazine
Posted by Drew458
on 01/07/2010 at 02:32 PM
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Permalink • Girls 12 hold up bank in USA, and some idiot comments “Only in America” when worse is done here.
OK so, there’s an article in the Mail about two young girls who walked into a bank in Ohio and held it up. It might be surprising since they were about 12 to 14, according to reports. I didn’t post it mostly because I think by its nature and age of the girls, you folks would already know about it. Even before I see the USA news. But what made me see red was some idiot Brit in comments after the story saying, “Only in America.” I mean, what a jerk. Like there isn’t any crime here in the UK. GIRLS AGE 12 ROB BANK
Like this story. Be prepared to be frustrated and angry and scratch your collective heads trying to figure this one out.
Sex attacker, 11, secretly sent to primary schoolBy Paul Sims
A boy of 11 who had been judged a serious risk to other children inflicted the most appalling sexual abuse on a classmate after he was secretly placed in a mainstream school.
The youngster, who was living in local authority care, had carried out sex attacks on children before but was never charged because he was too young.
sex attack boy
Previous attacks: the boy was judged a serious risk
Instead, social workers moved him into specialist care, where he should have been taught.
But despite a two-inch thick file on his disturbing behaviour, he was put in a mainstream school, where he began the chain of events that led to the attack on a nine-year-old fellow pupil.
Last night, his victim’s devastated parents, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said the move was an attempt by the council to save money.
And they demanded answers after it emerged the boy has since been placed in another mainstream school. They told how, despite complaining to officials, they felt ignored by authorities and were forced to remove their son after his attacker was allowed to remain in classes for eight months - even after admitting the offence to police.
‘We fear this boy still poses a serious danger to children,’ his heartbroken mother said. ‘He is predatory and displayed all the signs of adult-like grooming, using threats and intimidation.’
The mother, 43, said she only learnt about the boy’s past after her son was attacked.
Authorities were aware of his activity with other children but because at the time he was under ten - the age of criminal responsibility - he was never charged.
Within months of arriving at the school, the boy began grooming the younger pupil. Then, with the knowledge of his care workers, he was allowed to visit his victim’s home where the attack, in 2008, was carried out.
The victim’s mother said although the family were aware the 11-year-old was living in care, they believed it was because his parents had split up.
‘We obviously didn’t know then he had a history of sexual abuse against other children,’ she said. ‘He should never have been allowed to come to our home.’
The boy was charged with indecent assault but the case was dropped when he admitted the offence and was given a final warning - the youth equivalent of a caution. He was not placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register.
The local ombudsman is now re-examining the complaint.
MP Sir Alan Beith, chairman of the justice committee, called for an independent inquiry. He said: ‘I’m not satisfied that all necessary steps have been taken to learn lessons from the case.’
Northumberland council said the boy was ‘doing well with foster parents and at a new school’.
What possible reason could there be for keeping this less then human pile of garbage alive? For what purpose? Here’s just another case of a “youth” being given a warning, when what is so clearly required is the death penalty and a painful one at that!
I have NO patience for what some hand wringers think are poor little sheep who have lost their way. Oh baa,baa,baa. Their death by any and all means will insure a safer society and possibly a better gene pool.
Posted by peiper
on 01/07/2010 at 01:53 PM
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Permalink • UPDATE ON PREVIOUS STORY. SCHOOL DAYS …. BOY STABS TEACHER, LET OFF WITH A WARNING.
Yeah right. Just got this update on the last story about the little creep.
A warning. Uh huh. That’ll really scare the hell out of the shit. That’s the major trouble with young offenders. They are savvy. They know they’ll get away with things with little or no worry. A warning. His next victim will be a victim of that “warning” as much as a victim of the “yoot” involved here.
Best thing for the safety of society would be to do away with him, and harvest body parts for sick kids who really need help and who aren’t thugs.
10-year-old boy who stabbed teacher with a pencil escapes with a warning
By Jaya Narain
Last updated at 5:20 PM on 07th January 2010A boy of 10 who stabbed one teacher in the chest with a pencil and attacked two others has escaped punishment.
The boy, who cannot be named, attacked the teacher during an incident at his primary school last term.
After kicking a female member of staff, the boy was being led to a ‘quiet room’ when he lashed out again.
He was later charged with the assaults and appeared before a youth court in the town on New Year’s Day.
But yesterday he accepted a warning over his behaviour from police officers after a review of the case was carried out.
The boy had previously been reprimanded for a kicking attack on another female teacher.
Last night union bosses condemned the decision and demanded more action needs to be taken to protect teachers.
John Girdley of the NASUWT said: ‘When pupils attack teachers - and this does happen - we consider this totally unacceptable.
‘Teachers are there to teach they are not social workers and not police officers. The school should take very robust action against a pupil, particularly one who repeats an assault.
‘This is made all the more serious when a weapon is used, however primitive the weapon may seem.’
He said: ‘If one of our members came to us and said they wanted nothing more to do with this child we would support them. That could reach a refusal to teach ballot- a form of industrial action - in extreme circumstances.’
A spokesman for the Association of Teachers and Lecturers said: ‘When a teacher is assaulted we would hope the school would actively pursue prosecution.
‘We would say that if there is an assault the pupil should not return to the school where it took place. If a teacher remains unhappy there is always recourse to private prosecution.’
A member of staff at the primary school said: ‘My colleague was a lucky man. That pencil could have pierced a lung or even worse.
‘To charge the boy, make him appear in court and then to reverse everything and just give him a warning - is that a punishment befitting the crime?’
The age of criminal responsibility in the UK is 10 and the authorities decided to give the boy a warning because of his age.
Angus Craigen, prosecutor, told the hearing in Blackpool that charges against the 10-year-old had been withdrawn.
Trevor Colebourne, defending, said: ‘There were three teachers involved and my client has asked me to apologise to all three. He is now in a different school.’
Last year, a teacher received more than £280,000 compensation for an assault by a teenage pupil which has left her with permanent back pain.Sharon Lewis, 26, was attacked by a 13-year-old boy, who cannot be named, who jumped on her back and placed her in a headlock.
He ignored her pleas to stop and she eventually fell to the floor hitting a wall and window.
The attack ended her teaching career and left her with constant pains in her neck and down her back.
Oh well, the lawyer defending says his client say sorry. That’s all ok then. I think the lawyer needs the feel of something sharp in his chest. Be interesting to know if he’d ever try and help some other creep for that kind of crime. Hell, once stabbed he might become a conservative.
Posted by peiper
on 01/07/2010 at 01:26 PM
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Permalink • MORE GLOBAL WARMING NEWS. 2MOROZ HEADLINE TONIGHT …. BIG ANNOUNCMENT!!!!!!
No kidding people. It is so darn cold it takes the breath away. So why are some folks walking or jogging with no hat or coat or gloves and wearing shorts? And a T-shirt. Jeesh ...
It was a beautiful, bright and cold day, hardly anything melted and I suspect the weather has put a damper on the construction of the house next door. GOOD!
There was ice on the inside of the window in the upstairs window early this morning, and according to the reports, we are in for more severe weather.
We got mail delivery today, in good weather the guy uses a bike. They still use those here to deliver mail and don’t laff cos it works okay. If they aren’t on srrike.
Things like milk,eggs,butter and bread and a host of other things are delivered to the door by our local (sort of) dairy. My BIG worry, and it is a big one, is the chance of freezing pipes. Especially since the water supply that cuts across the propert next door, is not buried very deep at the point it joins our property. The reason being, they dug out a LOT of the top soil going down about a foot at least thus uncovering our supply. So, currently where it joins our line but still on their side, a small section of pipe is covered by some fiberglass insulation and a bit of dirt. A tiny portion of the insulation can be seen but it’s covered with snow and ice at the moment. What fun.
Anyway, I think if anything was going to freeze it would have been last night. So maybe we were lucky. So far.
Britain faces coldest night of winter as five die in Big Freeze and temperatures plummet to -20C
By Sophie Freeman
Last updated at 4:17 PM on 07th January 2010Britain is facing the coldest night of the winter so far tonight as the death toll from the freezing weather rises still further.
A sports fan attending the televised World Darts Championships has become the latest victim of the UK’s plummeting temperatures as the Arctic blast tightens its grip.
The man, believed to be in his 40s, was found dead under the ice in a lake at the world-famous Lakeside Country Club in Surrey.
Temperatures are expected to drop to lower than -20C in the Scottish Highlands tonight, following lows of -17.7C in Benson, Oxfordshire and -15C in Manchester overnight.
Among casualties as heavy snow turned to ice was a 16-year-old boy killed after the car he was travelling in crashed on the A1 near Richmond, North Yorkshire.
The teenager and his mother are believed to have been making their way to the hard shoulder after colliding with the central reservation when they were struck by a lorry.
Dwindling gritting stocks were also reaching crisis point as a series of accidents on some major routes added to difficulties for millions of drivers.
Forecasters have predicted sub-zero temperatures beyond the weekend, which could mean more of the snowstorms that brought large parts of the country to a standstill yesterday.
ENGLAND SEEN FROM SPACE: WINTER WONDERLAND
----------> W That’s about where Winchester is and we’re just slightly to the left. Things about maps here drive us nuts because every time a map is shown in weather news or even political news, they NEVER but NEVER (well, hardly ever) show Winchester. England’s first capitol city.
Some years ago the maps used to read SouthCentral also and Winchester was there. Since they quit printing that, we’ve disapppeared.
They know where you are at tax time however.
Posted by peiper
on 01/07/2010 at 11:42 AM
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Permalink • More, SCHOOL DAZE … Schoolboy, 10, arrested after ‘stabbing teacher in the chest with pencil.
So then. What to do? What to do? Maybe stick a pencil in the little shit so he knows what it feels like?
I was a sort of a hell raiser in school. By that I mean, I was always joking and generally made ppl laugh. In class, for which I earned a slap on the open palm with a ruler. Or was made to stand in the corner facing the wall outside the class room. I got to know that corner so well I gave it a name. But it never occurred to me that I should hit a teacher or even use disrespectful language of any kind. How times have changed.
Dunce’s corner banned: It could breach a pupil’s human rights, say councils
By David WilkesIt has been used as a punishment in schools since Victorian times.
Unruly pupils have been made to stand in the ‘dunce’s corner’ by teachers so that the lesson can carry on without further disruptions.
But now health and safety chiefs have warned that the practice is cruel, describing it as a ‘stress position’ that could breach a child’s human rights.
Schools have received guidelines from local education authorities saying that standing children in the corner is unsuitable and a less physical alternative should be used.
Some teachers won’t use the punishment because it ‘humiliates’ pupils in front of their classmates.
They are now advised to ask the pupil making a nuisance to explain to the class why he is interrupting the lesson.
Traditionalists have attacked the idea, saying teachers will end up with no means left to control disruptive-pupils.
Nick Seaton, chairman-of the Campaign for Real Education, called it ‘a ridiculous idea that compares what goes on in a classroom to Guantanamo Bay’.
He added: ‘Discipline is a major problem in classrooms at the moment and teachers have got to have some solutions for children who disrupt them or the whole system will fall apart.
‘We’re getting to the stage where teachers will not have any punishments at all. The hooligans will end up ruling the classroom.
Schoolboy, 10, arrested after ‘stabbing teacher in the chest with a pencil’By Daily Mail Reporter
A ten-year-old was arrested after a teacher was stabbed in the chest with a pencil during a class.
The boy reportedly grabbed the pencil from the teacher’s jacket pocket and then plunged it through the man’s shirt puncturing his chest near his heart.
The stunned primary school teacher then pulled out the pencil himself as colleagues called 999 and paramedics took him bleeding from the wound to Blackpool Victoria Hospital, Lancashire, for emergency treatment.Police were also called to the school and took the youngster - described as being of very slight build - into custody.
The boy who has just reached the age when he can face the justice system is understood to have admitted what he has done.A police spokesman said : ‘The teacher was very lucky, another inch and the sharp pencil could have punctured one of his main arteries.’
The incident is said to have occurred as the teacher tried to persuade the boy to go into the school’s quiet room used when a pupil gets unruly and needs time cool down.The boy refused and claims the teacher tried to grapple him into the room and it was then he allegedly grabbed the pencil and stabbed him with it.
There had reportedly been an earlier incident in which the same boy kicked the same teacher.
Lancashire Police have confirmed the boy was arrested and questioned by officers about the incident.If it is decided whether to report him for a wounding offence, a Youth Court is likely to impose a referral order on him as he has not been in trouble before.
Such an order means he could go under the guidance of a team of specialist youth workers and may have to write a letter of apology to the teacher.Blackpool Education Authority said the boy had been excluded from the school as a result of the incident and would receive home tuition in the meantime.
The teacher is recovering from the attack over the festive break and is expected back in the classroom in the New Year.
Posted by peiper
on 01/07/2010 at 10:20 AM
Filed Under: • Crime • Education • UK •
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Permalink • Wednesday - January 06, 2010
No More Bat Boat
Personally, I’m not in favor of whale hunting. Leave them alone. You want meat, grow a few hundred cattle. That being said, the “whale warriors” have to be the most annoying greenies out there. They have their own television program ... in which they take pictures of themselves harassing Japanese fishermen and fishing boats. Lately these “warriors” have turned somewhat violent, pelting the fishing boats with chum, water balloons, paint guns, etc. The fishermen respond with the standard anti-piracy tool: fire hoses. Reality TV drama with a green theme! Much more exciting than watching guys catch crabs in the dark!!
Well, the inevitable happened. The Save The Whales people put their super hi-tech speedboat in front of a full size ship, and stopped. The whaling ship was underway. Ships don’t have brakes you know. I remember a little bit from driver training, about the impact power of things out on the streets: bicycle beats pedestrian, motorcycle beats bicycle, car beats motorcycle, pickup truck beats car, bigger truck beats pickup truck, bus beats bigger truck, train beats bus. And you know what beats train? Ships. And bigger ships beat smaller ones. Oh sure, rules of the road say that pedestrians always have the right of way ... but don’t be a dope and set out to prove it. Rules of the sea say that a kayak probably has right of way over anything else on the water too ... but you’d be a fool to force the issue with an air craft carrier.
The “whale warriors” decided to force the issue. Naturally they lost. Boo frickin’ hoo. And now their two million dollar batman boat is all stove in. tsk tsk tsk. On the other hand, leave the whales the hell alone. Go catch some stingrays if you’re hungry. We’ve got loads of them. Or start up a fish farm like everyone else is doing. So honestly ... I’m not sure which side I’m on here. But the “whale warriors” seem like floating stinky hippies to me, so they probably deserve punching just on general principle.
A conservation group’s boat had its bow sheared off and was in danger of sinking as it took on water Wednesday after it was struck by a Japanese whaling ship in the frigid waters of Antarctica, the group said.
The boat’s six crew members were safely transferred to another of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s vessels, the newly commissioned Bob Barker. The boat is named for the American game show host who donated $5 million to buy it.
The clash was the most serious in the past several years, during which the Sea Shepherd has sent vessels into far-southern waters to try to harass the Japanese fleet into ceasing its annual whale hunt.
Clashes using hand-thrown stink bombs, ropes meant to tangle propellers and high-tech sound equipment have been common in recent years, and crashes between ships have sometimes occurred.
The society said its vessel Ady Gil — a high-tech speedboat that resembles a stealth bomber — was hit by the Japanese ship the Shonan Maru near Commonwealth Bay and had about 10 feet (three meters) of its bow knocked off.
Locky Maclean, the first mate of the society’s lead ship, said one crewman from New Zealand appeared to have suffered two cracked ribs, but the others were uninjured. The crew members were safely transferred to the group’s third vessel, though the Ady Gil’s captain remained on board to see what could be salvaged, he said.
The group accused the Japanese ship of deliberately ramming the Ady Gil.
“They were stopped dead in the water when the incident occurred,” Maclean said of the Ady Gil. “When they realized that the Shonan Maru was aiming right for them, they tried to go into reverse to get the bow out of the way but it was too late. The Shonan Maru made a course correction and plowed directly into the front end of the boat.”
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society claimed its 78 ft protest powerboat the Ady Gil was “sliced in half” by the Japanese security ship Shonan Maru 2 as it loitered near the whaling fleet.
Jeff Hansen, the group’s director, insisted the Ady Gil was trying to get out of the way when it was hit, but Japan’s government-backed Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) has accused the protesters of causing the collision. Mr Hansen said the incident occurred after two activist vessels intercepted the Japanese fleet near Antarctica’s Commonwealth Bay.
“The Ady Gil has been cut, hit by one of the harpoon vessels,” he said. “It was stationary at the time. It tried to back out of the way but the Shonan Maru 2 had it in its path. It came through and took off a section off the fuselage.”
There wreckage of the boat was still afloat, but it was expected to sink in the next few hours as it took on water, he said. All six crew members had been rescued and transferred to Sea Shepherd’s new Norwegian harpoon ship the Bob Barker. “Everyone aboard is safe, we’ve managed to get everyone off and they’re ok,” Mr Hansen told Australian media.
“We have it all on film and we’re getting onto all the authorities at the moment.”
Paul Watson, captain and founder of Sea Shepherd, said the attack “seriously escalates the whole situation”.
“If they think that our remaining two ships will retreat from the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary in the face of their extremism, they will be mistaken,” he said. “We now have a real whale war on our hands now and we have no intention of retreating.”
The activists have a ship named the Bob Barker? Yeah, him. Mr. Gameshow host, Bob “have your pets spayed or neutered” Barker. They have another craft named the Steve Irwin. Crikey.
When it [ the Ady Gil ] was launched on Dec 19, the $1.5 million carbon fibre trimaran was touted as Sea Shepherd’s secret weapon. The Ady Gil was designed to run on low-emission, renewable fuels and was built with materials that would make it difficult for radars to detect so that it could sneak up of whaling vessels and disrupt the hunt. But its lighweight design, which allowed the vessel to reach higher speeds than the group’s larger ships, meant it was far less robust and more susceptible to attack.
This was the maiden voyage of the Ady Gil. Previously known as the EarthRace, it’s a very high performance open ocean racing boat. “Couldn’t get out of the way in time”? Horseshit. EarthRace holds the record for the fastest motorboat trip around the globe; just under 61 days. On two tanks full of fuel I gather. 78 feet long, but only drawing 4 feet of water, the EarthRace could hit 40 knots with it’s 1040hp engines and it’s dry weight of only 14 tons.
(October 18, 2009) At a fundraising event in Los Angeles on Saturday, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society unveiled their newest “ocean defense” vessel: the Ady Gil. Formerly known as Earthrace, the ship was renamed to honor the benefactor that helped the anti-whaling group acquire the ship.
“We’re very excited that the Ady Gil will be joining the Steve Irwin in Antarctica this campaign,” Captain Paul Watson said. “With these two ships, we will mount the most ambitious and aggressive effort to date to obstruct the slaughter of the whales in the Southern Ocean.”
We’ve been following the transformation of the Earthrace/Gil from a world-record holding speedboat to an anti-whaling vessel since it was rumored back in April that it would be joining the Sea Shepherd fleet. With the new paint job and a few additional high-tech goodies now installed, it looks like the ship is ready to join the Irwin for Operation Waltzing Matilda this December.
As expected, Watson made it clear that he intends to place the Gil in harms way — particularly as an “intercept and blocking” weapon against the Japanese fleet. Sounds like a risky game of “chicken” — but Ady Gil Captain Pete Bethune is ready for the challenge.”If they ever hit us with an explosive harpoon it’ll be massive damage,” he told Ecorazzi during the summer. “But certainly we’ll do our best to get in their way. If they hit us it will always be their guy that pulled the trigger — but hopefully things won’t come to that.”
Consider yourselves fortunate that the fishermen didn’t hunt you down and kill you. I’m sure it was very tempting.
Commercial whaling is banned inthe Southern Ocean, but the Japanese have exploited a legal loophole to continue whaling for “scientific purposes”. This season the Japanese fleet aims to harpoon up to 935 minke whales and 50 fin whales, both of which are classified as endangered.
Minke whales and Fin whales are both baleen whales, like their cousins the Humpbacks and the Blues. Minkes are rather small, about 24 feet and 9 tons. Fins are the second largest creature on earth, reaching 88 feet and 75 tons. Both are endangered species, although the minke population is thought to exceed 900,000 worldwide, roughly 30 times the fin whale population. Actually, minkes may not be endangered; it’s hard to tell.
Is Japan full of it? I think so. You don’t need to kill whales to study them. Certainly not by the hundreds. And you especially don’t need to kill any of the seriously endangered ones. None. But stopping whaling altogether? Or at least stopping commercial, floating factory whaling? Sounds to me like this is a job for the UN and the One World Navy. Not a job for floating hippies in their little plastic speedboats.
UPDATE: Video from the whaler’s perspective here.
Posted by Drew458
on 01/06/2010 at 09:20 PM
Filed Under: • Animals • High Tech • Politically-Incorrect •
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Permalink • BMEWS In Lockdown
BMEWS is getting spambotted. This is a bad thing.
I have deleted all pending memberships. I have deleted the last dozen or so new members, except for the 2 I know are real people. I have disabled the new member registration link. I have disabled the new member registration process, for spambots that collect links.
If you are one of those new members who got the axe, sorry!, send me an email with your information - screen name, user name, email, etc., and I will put you back in manually. Please include a bit of conversational text so that I can tell you are a real person. I will give you a password which you can then change yourself on log-in.
If you want to sign on as a new member, send me an email. Your name, the screen name and user name you want, any pertinent info. Please put in a bit of conversational text so that I can tell you are a real person.
[ Drew, what is “conversational text”? Well, once upon a time, there was this strange activity called “writing a letter”. People would “write about” things in those “letters”, such as their feelings about recent news events, their reaction to blog posts, etc. I think this used to be called “the personal touch”. Try it! If you are really, truly stumped for something to say, just read the chem_nerd graffitti below, and put that in the email instead. ]
I hope this is just temporary.
Yes, I could figure out how to do one of those verify thingies in the comments, like Vilmar alluded to, and I will if I have to. I’m hoping that a couple weeks of no access will make these bastards go away.
UPDATE: and we have our first manually entered member. Actually, he’s an old, old, member who left us for a while. But now he’s back, so it should be fine. I’m sure you remember ...
Posted by Drew458
on 01/06/2010 at 01:38 PM
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Permalink • Picture Perfect
A couple bits of photographic excellence for a cold winter’s day. You do have hours to spare and nothing to do, right?
Very few of these pictures give any camera/lens information, but most of them look like real film through superb quality lenses to me. Are there digital cameras this good? I don’t know, but if so, they cost a fortune.
Enjoy.
A decent collection of Russian train pictures is located here. Trains have always fascinated and impressed me. It’s technology that you can understand just by looking at it, and the scale is massive. This is just one page from the englishrussia.com website; like Russia itself, this one is huge.
Pixdaus gives us an extraordinary portrait gallery. It’s 122 pages long. Sure, there are pictures of cute puppies, adorable kids, and those B&W pictures of raisin-y east european grannies, but most of it is beautiful pictures of beautiful women. Some of them are professionally beautiful, models and actresses and so forth, but most are just regular folks. Quality photography throughout. Pixdaus is another huge website, with more than 10,500 pages. It’s a digital library!
Posted by Drew458
on 01/06/2010 at 11:34 AM
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy • Fun-Stuff •
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Permalink • Panic buying at supermarkets as Britain braces itself for the big freeze.
It has started to snow again .... very cold wind along with it makes things worse.
Just as long as electric and computer keep going, not worried.
Ice-bound Britain is paralysed by the biggest snowfall for years . . . and grit and gas supplies are already running low
By Ray Massey and Paul Sims
Last updated at 12:22 PM on 06th January 2010Army drafted in to rescue 1,000 stranded motorists
Up to 1,000 stranded motorists had to be rescued by the Army this morning after some of the heaviest snowfalls in 30 years left drivers trapped in their cars overnight.
Among those stranded without food and water was a heavily-pregnant woman and her baby daughter.
Snowstorms have caused massive disruptions on the roads and railways - leaving millions unable to get to work.
Thousands of schools remain closed, while major airports have been forced to ground flights as snow ploughs try desperately to clear runways of snow and ice.
Link to the rest above the photo
Panic buying at supermarkets as Britain braces itself for the big freezeBy James Tozer
Last updated at 9:21 AM on 06th January 2010Hot food and warm clothing were flying off supermarket shelves yesterday as shivering shoppers braced themselves for the deepening big freeze.
Where roads were not already impassable with snow, buyers seized the chance to stock up on vital supplies to see them and their families through in case they end up trapped at home.
And alongside the tinned soup, thermal underwear and bags of salt, there was a surprise best-seller - cat litter.
empty shelvesShelves were emptied of food at Spar in Stockport as worried shoppers prepare for snow
Following an article in the Daily Mail revealing how people are using it in place of grit to clear paths and driveways, demand has been soaring, with Asda reporting sales up by 55 per cent in just two days.
However, those who have put cat litter to the test report that while it makes surfaces less slippery, it does little to help melt snow and ice, and can make a mess when trodden into floors and carpets.
Bags of salt are also being snapped up, with sales of 1.5kg bags of cooking salt up five-fold at Morrisons and rock salt sales up 150 per cent at B&Q.
snowConditions could worsen tonight as 40cm of snow is expected
Hot, hearty food was much in demand, with Asda selling 50 per cent more porridge and other oat cereals as this time last year and 20 per cent more ready-made hotpots and casseroles.
Stodgy puddings were also up, while Tesco said soup sales were up 80 per cent on two weeks ago.
The deepening winter chill was encouraging shoppers to stock up on cold weather gear, with thermal underwear sales up ten-fold at Asda and wellington boots also sought after.
Posted by peiper
on 01/06/2010 at 07:26 AM
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather • UK •
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:
It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.
- Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
- Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
- Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
- Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere
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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
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