“Beyond Petroleum” or “Swoosh, Boom, Run”

Oil rig veterans say that in the event that pressure forces gas up to the surface “swoosh, boom …run”.

According to one interview transcript, a gas cloud covered the rig, causing giant engines on the drill floor to run too fast and explode. The engines blew off the rig and set "everything on fire," the account said. Another explosion below blew more equipment overboard.
"The swoosh is the gas, boom is the explosion and run is what you better be doing."

Now, after the first attempt at capping the runaway well with a giant dome has failed a BP executive can’t quite come clean. The gases and methane hydrates implicating in the original explosion quickly gathered in the dome causing the effort to be abandoned.

Heckuva comment Suttles

“I wouldn’t say it has failed yet,” said Doug Suttles, the operating officer for exploration and production for BP, the company that was leasing the oil rig when it exploded April 20. “What I would say is what we attempted to do last night didn’t work.”

I suppose the man has a point, as the Gulf fills up with oil.

Neanderthals and Human Hybrids!

What did they see in each other 45,000 years ago?
‘She made me laugh, we had some great times together, but it over now ’says Grok



Who is going to tell the creationists?

Any human whose ancestral group developed outside Africa has a little Neanderthal in them – between 1 and 4 per cent of their genome, Pääbo's team estimates. In other words, humans and Neanderthals had sex and had hybrid offspring. A small amount of that genetic mingling survives in "non-Africans" today: Neanderthals didn't live in Africa, which is why sub-Saharan African populations have no trace of Neanderthal DNA.
It's impossible to know how often humans invited Neanderthals back to their cave (and vice versa), but the genome data offers some intriguing details.

"It must have been at least 45,000 years ago," says David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School who was involved in the project. That's because all non-Africans – be they from France, China or Papua New Guinea – share the same amount of Neanderthal DNA, suggesting that interbreeding occurred before those populations split. The timing makes the Middle East the likeliest place where humans leaving Africa and resident Neanderthals did the deed.

Click here to read more

Giant Pigweed and Johnsongrass ! Updated below

Pigweed can grow three inches a day and reach seven feet or more

It took ten years from the first appearance of Roundup (the miracle chemical weed killer) resistant weeds for 10 super weeds to spread to 22 states infesting soybeans, corn and cotton. Common and giant ragweed, pigweed and most recently johnsongrass are all species of weeds exhibiting roundup resistant tendencies.

New York Times reports
Sales took off in the late 1990s, after Monsanto created its brand of Roundup Ready crops that were genetically modified to tolerate the chemical, allowing farmers to spray their fields to kill the weeds while leaving the crop unharmed. Today, Roundup Ready crops account for about 90 percent of the soybeans and 70 percent of the corn and cotton grown in the United States.

But farmers sprayed so much Roundup that weeds quickly evolved to survive it. “What we’re talking about here is Darwinian evolution in fast-forward,” Mike Owen, a weed scientist at Iowa State University, said.

Mr. Anderson, the farmer, is wrestling with a particularly tenacious species of glyphosate-resistant pest called Palmer amaranth, or pigweed, whose resistant form began seriously infesting farms in western Tennessee only last year.
Pigweed can grow three inches a day and reach seven feet or more, choking out crops; it is so sturdy that it can damage harvesting equipment. In an attempt to kill the pest before it becomes that big, Mr. Anderson and his neighbors are plowing their fields and mixing herbicides into the soil.

Strategies for fighting glyphosate resistant weeds are underway but currently they involve more applications of herbicides and therefore cause greater expense to the farmer .

Delta Farm Press reports
Pace Hindsley, a Marvell[Ark.] farmer, said the problem is forcing growers to go back to older ways of farming, including hand-hoeing to get the weeds out of the fields.
“We’re not just worried about the problem this year, but also next year and the year after that and each year until we can get a solution to the problem,” said Hindsley.
In addition to the frustrations caused by battling pigweed, cost is also a major consideration.
“You get to a point where it’s just not financially feasible to do anything else and you have to live with the results you’ve got,” said Jim Hubbard, who also farms in Marvell. “You pull your hair out because you’ve done everything you know to do and you just can’t beat this weed.”

UPDATE:
A great follow-up to this in the Room for Debate feature in the New York Times, which asks seven people familiar with the issue the following three questions:

What should farmers do about these superweeds?
What does the problem mean for agriculture in the U.S.?
Will it temper American agriculture’s enthusiasm for genetically modified crops that are engineered to survive spraying with Roundup?

Michael Pollan, author, “Food Rules”
Stephen Powles, plant biologist and grain farmer
Blake Hurst, farmer
Anna Lappé, Small Planet Institute
Scott M. Swinton, agriculture economist
Micheal D.K. Owen, professor of agronomy

Left Handed Cat blogging

I needed a late Monday excuse for cat blogging and found it with this item from the world of science.

With cats, the team from Queen's University in Belfast concluded that females tend to favour their right paw when trying to extract a treat from a jar while toms prefer their left, with the same gender divide applying to dogs.
Fish tend to have a dominant eye when looking at potential predators, with right-eyed specimens circling threats clockwise and their left-eyed counterparts moving anti-clockwise.

The team's report in the New Scientist even suggests that dogs wag their tails to the right when they're relaxed and to the left when they feel agitated.

Science you can do in the comfort of your own home!


Dogs:
See if Fido wags his tail to his left or right. If he's like most dogs, furious wagging to the right means he is relaxed and ready to approach whatever he sees; if he wags to the left he might prefer to withdraw.

Cats and rodents:
Give your cat, rat or hamster a jar with a tasty treat and see which paw they use to try and extract it. If your pet is a cat, expect toms to use their left paws and the females to use their right.

More here

Dubie Scheduled to Ride the Tiger

The promo for the Vermont Tiger event called Crunch Time notes that:

“He [Dubie] has long been interested in new ideas and innovative policies to promote economic growth in Vermont and was a panelist at last year's ‘Compete or Retreat’ symposium.”

Compete or Retreat indeed.

During the recent budget debate Dubie has been absent and hasn’t presided over the State Senate for two days. Earlier it was reported he had canceled a scheduled candidate debate appearance for April 28 at a debate featuring 7th and 8th graders questions. The debate had already been rescheduled once to accommodate him.
But the man who could be the Where’s Waldo of Vermont gubernatorial campaigns will ride the friendly Vermont Tiger on May 25th.

The event promises to be mostly free from the probing questions of 7th and 8th graders.
Dubie will deliver the morning address at the symposium which will deal with the very serious and immediate economic challenges facing the state and discuss reforms and routes to prosperity. That Dubie actually missed a chance this week to practice governing and deal with the very problems under discussion at the symposium is significant of notice.

If it is true, as the overworked saying goes that 80% of life is just showing up how should we rate Lite Gov. Brian Dubie’s campaign?

Junk Food Obesity and Recruits

Food is in the news again, or still, but this time it is a matter of National Security.
Mission:Readiness a non-profit group of retired military officers including retired generals and admirals have expressed concern that 9 million young adults, or 27 percent of all Americans ages 17 to 24, are too fat to join the military.
"When over a quarter of young adults are too fat to fight, we need to take notice,” said, retired Navy Rear Adm. James Barnett Jr... He noted that national security in the year 2030 is "absolutely dependent" on reversing child obesity rates.
The group,Mission:Readiness is urging Congress in a recent report(PDF) to eliminate junk food and high-calorie beverages from schools, put more money into the school lunch program and develop new strategies that help children develop healthier habits.
The group referred to similar push military leaders made in 1945, when concerns about poor health and malnutrition resulted in the creation of National School Lunch Program.

Fast Food Insurance

A new study (found here) highlights the extent to which life and health insurance companies are invested in the fast food industry. Even as the recent health care bill increases, by mandates the number of people covered by private health care U.S., Canadian and European-based insurance firms own nearly $2 billion in fast food stocks. The study points out that fast food can be consumed responsibly but that consumption is linked to obesity, cardiovascular disease and some childhood health issues.

These are for profit companies so what would you expect? It’s sort of a life insurance profitability hedge fund perhaps.

The researchers, affiliated with Physicians for a National Health Program say this highlights the conflicts that may exist between maximizing profit and the expanding public health role of private health insurers. They state: “If insurers are to play a greater part in the health care delivery system they ought to be held to a higher standard of corporate responsibility."

U.S.-based Northwestern Mutual and Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company both offer life insurance as well as disability and long-term care insurance. Northwestern Mutual owns $422.2 million of fast-food stock, with $318.1 million of McDonald's. Mass Mutual owns $366.5 million of fast-food stock, including $267.2 in McDonald's.

New Jersey-based Prudential Financial Inc. sells life insurance and long-term disability coverage. With total fast-food holdings of $355.5 million, Prudential Financial owns $197.2 of stock in McDonald's and also has significant stakes in Burger King, Jack-in-the-Box, and Yum! Brands (owner of Pizza Hut, KFC and Taco Bell) stock.

Climate Research Unit “Dedicated if slightly disorganized”

It is reported in the GuardianUK that climate scientists were found to be “disorganized but did not fudge [their] results” So says the second of three planned high level inquiries into the recent media fed issue of emails between East Anglia University Climate Research Unit scientists discussing global warming has been released .

The inquiry, the second of three set up in the wake of the controversy, found "absolutely no evidence of any impropriety whatsoever", according to Lord Oxburgh, who led the investigation.

Instead, Oxburgh said, many of the criticisms and assertions of scientific misconduct were likely made by people "who do not like the implications of some the conclusions" reached by the climate experts

One fiery Vermont climate change denier John McClaughry may want to re-think or amend his heated declaration of mission accomplished over what he calls the “warming zealots”, socialists and mysterious special interests.
Last December after the email dust-up McClaughry wrote far and wide of what he called the collapse of the global warming scam:

It also fatally undermines the political pressure for supranational controls over energy and economies so long urged by socialists and special interests of various stripes.
This is very bad news for the global warming crowd, from President Obama to Sen. Sanders, the big business Climate Action Group, Vermont Senate President Peter Shumlin, VPIRG, propagandist Bill McKibben, and the nuts in polar bear suits roaming the Statehouse lawn.

I Googled far and wide for reports or images of McClaughry’s intriguing reference to "nuts in polar bear suits roaming the [Vermont] Statehouse lawn" but sadly was unable to find any record of this.
It may be some strange fantasy of his that requires further investigation or treatment.

Alan Greenspan Only 30% Wrong!

Frank Rich scores 100% commenting today on Alan Greenpsan's personal responsibility matrix.

“I was right 70 percent of the time, but I was wrong 30 percent of the time,” said Alan Greenspan as he testified last week on Capitol Hill. Greenspan — a k a the Oracle during his 18-year-plus tenure as Fed chairman — could not have more vividly illustrated how and why geniuses of his stature were out to lunch while Wall Street imploded. No doubt he applied his full brain power to that 70-30 calculation. But the big picture eludes him. If the captain of the Titanic followed the Greenspan model, he could claim he was on course at least 70 percent of the time too.

New Vt State Fish,Wildlife and Lottery Commission

The Times Argus online unscientific poll asks: Do you understand Challenges for Change? Yes or No, this troubled me. Like Challenges for Change itself the poll limited its possible answers. As of early today the poll results show not surprisingly that just about a quarter of 300+ respondents say yes, they actually understand C for C.

Do those roughly 75 people that understand all work for Public Strategies Group or are some in the legislature?
Although sick of the race to the bottom aspect of the C for C I checked out the 47 page C for C pdf Progress Report.

The report details seven “First Wave” charter units, think of them as the shock troops for the CforC program.

What follows are some notes on Vermont's robust alternative planning:

Listed among three Challenge Outcomes and Proposed Measures for all “First Wave “ departments are these nuggets of managerial guidance and brilliance : Increase employees’ engagement in their work. After years of layoffs and threatened layoffs by Governor Douglas this could be a stand alone challenge.

Some specifics worth highlighting by dept. include
the Department of Liquor Control getting additional revenue for the general fund through increased sales. And a gift card program generating $50,000 in new revenue the first year of sales.

The Dept of Fish and Wildlife initiatives include Generate additional revenues by promoting the sale of Department merchandise such as t-shirts, mugs, hats, books, posters, patches and stamps
And finally this, which boggles the entrepreneurial imagination: if feasible, Fish and Wildlife should collaborate with VT Lottery Commission to develop new mutually beneficial products

An Aged Vermont Whine

S.117 becomes law with Gubernatorial Whining Statement

Governor Douglas allowed S.117, an act changing the date of Vermont’s Primary Election to become law yesterday without his signature. This new law which moves the primary to August 24th brings Vermont into compliance with a Federal requirement regarding a minimum of 45 days for overseas voters (mostly service members) to return their absentee ballots.

Other states that faced this issue include Minnesota which made similar changes months ago. Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty signed it with Minnesota National guard troops present at the ceremony.
However Governor Douglas opposed the change, and until today’s acquiescence had been coy about whether he would veto the bill.

Characteristically he did not miss the opportunity to restate his well known objections including his concern that “Vermonters often enjoy their hard-earned vacations and surely are not focused on an election…”
Accompanying his press release with his own petulant version of a presidential signing statement, Douglas offered up a sort of gubernatorial whining statement that lamented ;

“But now, in the guise of assuring that the votes of our brave men and women in the military are counted, as of course they should be, the Legislature has passed S. 117, which in all likelihood will discourage voter participation.

Vermont Springtime Heat Record Broken for Second Day!

Burlington Vermont

Saturday, the temperature recorded at Burlington International Airport was 79 degrees, six degrees higher than the previous record for April 3 that was set in 1981.
Montpelier had a temperature of 83, breaking its 1981 record by 12 degrees. St. Johnsbury had heated up to 80 degrees, five degrees above its 1981 record.

Senators DeMint, Inhofe any comments?


The difference between weather and climate is a measure of time. Weather is what conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time, and climate is how the atmosphere "behaves" over relatively long periods of time.

This past winter climate skeptics seized on the blizzard in Washington ,snowmaggedon,as proof that global warming was a hoax .A hoax promoted by the global warming industry to use George Will’s term . The fact that it was cold outside and Washington had a blizzard proves there is no global Warming.
Climate skeptic Sen. James Inhofe even built himself an igloo and cleverly placed a sign a top reading Al Gore’s new home. Not to be outdone Senator Jim DeMint found himself twittering “It’s going to keep snowing in D.C. until Al Gore cries ‘uncle.'"


So I wondered what the National Republican climate brain-trust would make of the weather as I sat here in Vermont yesterday with the record breaking Springtime 80 degree temps.
Someone should call Republican Senators Inhofe and DeMint; they’d know what’s up with the weather around here.

Dubie Emission Standards or “The General turned to me and said, ‘Brian…’ ”

Jobs tour completed, Vermont gubernatorial candidate Brian Dubie recently opted out of a televised union-sponsored debate in Barre that might have proved a useful venue to discuss his insights on the state job situation. His absence and low key campaign style gives added significance to all the appearances he does make and utterances he does utter.

Years ago, Vermont joined thirteen other states in court to tighten standards for new car fuel emissions. Now those standards have been adapted by the Obama administration.
Certainly there were generous cheers and credit was shared liberally at the ceremony in Montpelier. At the event, gubernatorial hopeful Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie readily weighed in, happily recalling a special evening on a rooftop in Baghdad and also declaring that “Green really is green,” while brandishing a dollar bill.

Dubie reflected on a conversation he had with a U.S. military general on a Baghdad roof in Iraq last year. That general, looking over an evening skyline in the war-torn country, pressed for the need to move off of foreign oil coming from "dangerous parts of the world."

He said clean energy and reducing car emissions are essential to the country's environmental and economic health and safety.

"Green really is green," Dubie said, holding up a dollar bill he took from his pocket.Times Argus

Last year in Iraq?
Unless this is a regular occurrence in the life of Brian, he seems confused about when he shared a memorable evening on a rooftop in Baghdad with a U.S. military general.

From an article Dubie wrote for Aerospace States Association October, 2007

On a mid-September evening in 2006, I stood on a rooftop overlooking the city of Baghdad with a U.S. Air Force Commanding General. I was deployed to Iraq as an Air Force reservist and member of an Air Force field assessment team. The city was beautiful at night, but it was not peaceful.
The General turned to me and said, “Brian, America has to find ways to use less oil — especially oil that comes from dangerous parts of the world.”

Poisson d'Avril

The French call April 1 Poisson d'Avril, or "April Fish." French children sometimes tape a picture of a fish on the back of their schoolmates, crying "Poisson d'Avril" when the prank is discovered.

Click on: FOOL,for more than you may care to know about April 1st

The Spartan Wit

The Spartans were especially famous for their dry wit, which we now know as "laconic humour."

Even more Spartan humor:Click here

Meat theFacts: Livestock in a Changing Landscape

Meat the facts
Presented here for no particular reason are some astounding facts from a report titled Livestock in a Changing Landscape. No intention at meat guilt stuff just passing along a few astounding facts about what the world wide industrial carnivore system is doing to the planet
Among the key findings in the report are:
• More than 1.7 billion animals are used in livestock production worldwide and occupy more than one-fourth of the Earth's land.
• Production of animal feed consumes about one-third of total arable land.
• Livestock production accounts for approximately 40 percent of the global agricultural gross domestic product.
• The livestock sector, including feed production and transport, is responsible for about 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.

Impacts on humanity

Although about 1 billion poor people worldwide derive at least some part of their livelihood from domesticated animals, the rapid growth of commercialized industrial livestock has reduced employment opportunities for many, according to the report. In developing countries, such as India and China, large-scale industrial production has displaced many small, rural producers, who are under additional pressure from health authorities to meet the food safety standards that a globalized marketplace requires.

Harold Mooney, professor of biology and senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, is co-editor of the report comments
Consider the piece of ham on your breakfast plate, and where it came from before landing on your grocery shelf. First, take into account the amount of land used to rear the pig. Then factor in all the land, water and fertilizer used to grow the grain to feed the pig and the associated pollution that results.

Finally, consider that while the ham may have come from Denmark, where there are twice as many pigs as people, the grain to feed the animal was likely grown in Brazil, where rainforests are constantly being cleared to grow more soybeans, a major source of pig feed.

Livestock in a Changing Landscape is a collaboration of the FAO, SHL, Woods Institute for the Environment, International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Scientific Committee for Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), Agricultural Research Center for International Development (CIRAD), and Livestock, Environment and Development Initiative (LEAD).

Texas Learns 'Em Good

“I don’t care what the educational political lobby and their allies on the left say,” he declared at one point. “Evolution is hooey...The secular humanists may argue that we are a secular nation,” McLeroy said, jabbing his finger in the air for emphasis.
"But we are a Christian nation founded on Christian principles. The way I evaluate history textbooks is first I see how they cover Christianity and Israel. Then I see how they treat Ronald Reagan—he needs to get credit for saving the world from communism and for the good economy over the last twenty years because he lowered taxes."

Don McLeroy Republican member of the Texas State School Board

Evslin’s Bureaucratic Cloud

"But this switch to web-based government, just like the switch to web-based flight reservations and banking, means better service to clients at lower cost to the service provider. Not too good to be true."

Vermont Governor Jim Douglas’ resident smart man, Tom Evslin,is still threatening Vermont with an earlier promise of a government that will be run just like web-based flight reservations and banking services. He has expanded on this theme lately and now highlights the wonder of ATMs and computerized bank records as examples of efficiency for state government. Another newly added folksy illustration of life after our technological revolution is how easy it will be to apply for a hunting/fishing license. (Currently Hunting /fishing licenses can easily be purchased at most general stores in Vermont.) Perhaps he’s keeping it simple out of consideration for those that don’t share his vision of Vermont “in the cloud.”

But once records become electronic, they're wherever you need them to be. It doesn't matter whether they're in a corporate data center, on a disk in a state office. or somewhere off in a huge computer center operated by Google or Amazon (technically this is called being "in the cloud"). When you need access to them, they're where you are. You can withdraw money from any ATM (at least if you don't mind fees); you can charge at any store; and you ought to be able to go into any government office to do whatever government business you need to do.

He never touches the potential problems with cloud storage of public records on systems accessible through Google or Amazon. Previously his performance at the Vermont State Recovery Office was rated 47th out of 50 at providing required public access to economic stimulus spending and contract bid information. Evslin is a smart fellow, yet he persists in making simple arguments for his brave new world, with only fleeting references to what he calls “current organizational constraints.” These constraints would surely involve “attendant discomforts, confusion, and fears,” but Evslin glosses over these specifics and proceeds speedily past. No reason to dwell on job and pay cuts.

Anyone with a minimum familiarity with web-based transactions knows the fur-balls that electronic data can cough up. I wish he trusted in his vision and Vermonters enough to raise the level of discussion above 1960’s Popular Science Magazine. Stop chatting up the wonder of a government as futuristic as ATMs and airline flight reservation systems. How about a discussion about who wins and who loses in your bureaucratic cloud? Get out from the closed door meetings and explain to Vermont citizens, (or clients as you call them) how these changes will challenge them.

Toxic Donations coming to Vermont (Updated)

UPDATE: (Vermont will not accept the toxic waste after all.Wasted donations?
“It comes down to, we don’t agree with the way that EPA has characterized the waste,” said Dave DiDomenico, a regulator in the state Solid Waste Program. The Interstate Waste Services landfill in Moretown is not designed or certified to take hazardous waste.)Free Press

Vermont's Burlington Free Press takes note today for Vermonters of the imminent arrival of approximately 33,000 tons of contaminated soil. This hazardous soil will be shipped to Interstate Waste Service’s Moretown landfill. The dioxin-contaminated soil is coming from a Massachusetts Superfund site where wood was treated chemically. This ARRA funded cleanup will make way for a 120 space parking lot. According to a Foxboro Ma. Newspaper, it will take roughly one thousand round trips and 100 work days to haul it away.

The soil is a hazardous “substance” according to Federal EPA and must be removed from the Massachusetts site. However in logic that’s worthy of Catch 22 the soil is not a hazardous “waste” and therefore can be dumped in Vermont. A manager at Interstate Waste’s Moretown site couldn’t say “offhand” if they tested leachate for dioxins.
Vermont Powerless unless the soil is reclassified?
The soil is a hazardous “substance” according to Federal EPA and must be removed from the Massachusetts site. However, in logic that’s worthy of Catch 22, the soil is not a hazardous “waste” and therefore can be dumped in Vermont.
Vermont’s ANR Dave DiDomenico says unless the Federal EPA reclassifies the soil as hazardous, it can do nothing to stop the dumping in Moretown.

“They are private landfills. We can’t force them to take a waste, and we can’t not allow them to take something that isn’t hazardous,” he said.

Douglas’ Waste Service Donations
In July last year Vermont's Seven Days and Green Mountain Daily noted that among other donations Governor Douglas had revieved large (by Vermont standards) $2,000 campaign donations from the Interstate Waste Service Moretown landfill and a small landfill in South Hadley Mass. The town of South Hadley owns the landfill and it is operated by Interstate Waste Services.

Zombies at the Mall

During a 2006 summer festival at a Minneapolis shopping mall seven zombies created an event to illustrate mindless consumerism. The group "calling themselves zombies and almost touching people.” were the subject of 911 calls complaining about them walking "in a stiff, lurching fashion" throughout the mall .For musical accompaniment the zombies carried packs of audio equipment with wires sticking out which police claimed looked like a bomb or simulated WMD.

News reports say ...All but one member of the group were held at the Hennepin County Adult Detention Center for two nights; the minor in the group was taken to a juvenile detention center.
Jail officials confiscated Sternberg's prosthetic leg, explaining that he might use it as a weapon.
The group members were initially booked on charges of displaying simulated weapons of mass destruction, a charge punishable by up to 10 years in prison. But a sergeant reviewing the case determined that none of the sound equipment seized fit the definition of a simulated WMD.
Authorities returned the property, including [Zombie] Sternberg’s prosthetic leg, and released the group without filing a formal criminal complaint.

Now, years later a Minneapolis circuit court ruled that police should not have arrested the zombies. However the court dismissed a lawsuit for damages. The zombies claimed their arrests and overnight detention were unconstitutional. Discrimination was alleged in the complaint over the confiscation of one zombie’s prosthetic leg.

The St. Louis-based appeals court reversed on the Fourth Amendment claims, saying the plaintiffs "were engaged in protected expressive conduct."
"[A]n objectively reasonable person would not think probable cause exists under the Minnesota disorderly conduct statue to arrest a group of peaceful people for engaging in an artistic protest by playing music, broadcasting statements, dressing as zombies, and walking erratically in downtown Minneapolis during a week-long festival," the three-judge panel wrote.
Nor was there probable cause to arrest the plaintiffs for displaying simulated WMDs, the court added.

New Vermont Nuke from Dept. of Half-baked Ideas

At the Vermont Senate vote on Yankee re-licensing newly appointed Senator Peg Flory proposed an amendment that called for supporting a new reactor be built on the Vermont Yankee site. I wonder if she realized that rate payers in many states are being asked to pay nuclear plant construction costs in advance.

The advertised nuclear power rebirth is facing more problems than those generated by Vermont Yankee’s ongoing tritium leak. Daunting start up construction costs scare private investors away. New plants can cost a quarter to one hundred percent of an entire utilities market capitalization.

Federal backed loans guarantees and local rate payers will be footing major portions of the bill if utilities have their way. In states with nuclear power projects, utilities have lobbied for the ability to charge rate payers while construction is in progress. Residents of Georgia, Florida, Texas, South Carolina and Missouri may all be required to cover the advance costs of new nuclear power construction.
The Washington Post reports

Financing has always been one of the biggest obstacles to a renaissance of nuclear power. The plants are expensive, and construction tends to run late and over budget. …
So utilities have turned to state legislators and regulators to help contain capital costs. In states such as Georgia, Florida and South Carolina, utilities have won permission to charge customers for some of the cost of new reactors while construction is still in progress -- a financing technique that would save utilities a couple of billion dollars for each reactor. Previously, utilities had to wait until power plants were in operation before raising rates, as they still do in most states.

Vermont Yankee:It Still Leaks 24-7

Yesterday the Vermont Senate voted 26-4 to close entergy’s Vermont Yankee power plant by 2012.
But hey, it still leaks 24-7.
“brings new insight on plant operation”*
Yesterday Entergy reported that after investigating itself for misrepresenting the existence of underground piping they had suspended four more top level engineers. Included, somewhat incredibly, is the head of the team currently investigating the underground radioactive tritium leak.
These four additional suspensions bring the total to 11 high level people suspended ,disciplined and officially reprimanded for involvement in the underground pipe issue.

Entergy Nuclear announced Wednesday that it had suspended four additional senior Vermont Yankee employees - including the man who had been leading the investigation into the tritium leak - after it concluded its investigation into whether its employees lied to state regulators about the existence of buried pipes carrying radioactivity.

Larry Smith, spokesman for Entergy Nuclear, said that no successor had been named to replace Dreyfuss on the tritium task force, but he stressed that finding the leak was a "team effort." He declined to say when Dreyfuss and the others were placed on leave and he said he couldn't say what administrative leave entailed.

Also placed on leave was Dave McElwee, Entergy's senior liaison engineer who was the main technical point man on regulatory issues for the company in Montpelier.

Prior to the tritium leaks and revelations of lying ,er, misleading statements Dreyfuss and McElwee were both featured prominently in Entergy’s public relations campaign. This was the rapidly terminated iamvy.com PR blitz. Before this current unpleasantness began Vermont Yankee Site VP Mike Colomb (also among those admonished for the underground pipe deception) described the ad campaigns goals like this

“brings new insight on plant operation, as the featured employees -- all Vermont residents -- express in their own words the pride and dedication they bring to their jobs, and why it is in the best interest of all Vermonters to keep the plant in service.”

Vermont Catamount Health for $1 million less ?

Chairman of the National Governors Association (NGA), Vermont Governor Jim Douglas will lead the nation’s governors at their annual winter meeting in Washington this weekend. Healthcare availability and affordability one of Douglas’ focus points will be a subject of discussion at the gathering in Washington.

Vermont’s Catamount Health the public/private healthcare plan is one innovation Douglas often notes:

“I am proud of the steps we have taken in Vermont. My chairman’s initiative focuses on helping governors lead the way in improving the quality of our system, providing more insurance coverage and addressing key cost drivers to ensure we have a system that is affordable, accessible and accountable.” said Douglas in a press release prior to his trip to Washington.

The supposedly tightfisted governor's pride may be tempered somewhat from the findings of some research into Vermont’s Catamount Health plan. The plan established in 2007 included requirements for an outside efficiency study. Some results are quoted in the Burlington Free Press unfortunately no link to the study was provided.

The research results put forward that the Catamount Health could save $1 million a year if the state had been running it exclusively rather than the private/public arrangement that exists.

Researchers suggested if the same state office that administers Medicaid and the Vermont Health Access Program also ran Catamount, administrative costs would decrease by about $1 million a year.

Peter Sterling, executive director of the Vermont Campaign for Health Care Security Education Fund, called the researchers’ finding significant: “We have overpaid at least $2 million to let private insurance do what the state could have done.”

Utilities of Skeptics

Changes are coming fast and furious to parts of the utility industry in the US.The stirrings of a nuclear power renaissance (fueled by federal loan guarantees), carbon trading credits, wind power and smart grid initiatives are regularly in the news. However, attitudes in the industry may not be open to change. A new survey of the utility industry offers some interesting insights into their collective mind. This science and technology driven business apparently contains many who seriously doubt the science of climate change.

The survey found that 44% don’t believe global warming is caused by human activity . They note that in a 2009 Gallup poll, 57% of Americans believed global warming exists and is man made.

Earth2tech points out this utility respondent comment from the survey: “The energy industry needs to unite and fight the ridiculous ‘consensus’ science of AGW [Anthropogenic Global Warming]. This is not science as anyone with scientific and engineering training understands, but it is power politics.”

The industry may see climate change as bringing new waves of what are seen as troublesome rules and regulations. Strange though, that the very science based industry which might be a source for innovation and creativity in solving global warming challenges may be home for climate change deniers.

In a survey of over 300 utility industry participants, in response to the question: “Do you personally believe that fundamental, long-term global warming is taking place, or are we simply in a cyclical period of warming that is the result of the earth’s natural cycles?” — 39 percent of utility respondents said that they believe the earth is on a fundamental long-term warming trend, while 54 percent believe that we are in a cyclical warming period, and 7 percent responded that they don’t believe in global warming.

The Eye of the Dubie Campaign

Vermont Lt.Gov.Brian Dubie has been out touring Vermont. As his campaign takes shape he is more often seen standing alongside the Governor at photo ops and his press releases seem to be a regular feature on the Vermont.gov webpage. All this perhaps is trying to alleviate the image from past campaigns where he has campaigned lightly, and ducked debates.
He is also just wrapping up a lengthy statewide“jobs” tour in Chittenden County but from the Burlington Free Press reports it might more accurately be named the look-‘em-in-the-eye tour.

Dubie listened respectfully, accepted the position and added: "I vowed to look you in the eye."
It was like this between the lieutenant governor and the chorus of outspoken doubters. Dubie did look everyone in the eye.

It is unclear what magic this vow to look-‘em-in-the-eye may accomplish but it appears the Lt. Gov. is convinced it may work some magic on the self described “grumpy” titans of Vermont business he encountered. The “grumpy” yet “sage” manager of political relations for IBM gave Brian an earful.

“The business community has been talking about the same issues for two decades." To come to business at this time to ask about our perspective, O'Kane said "seems ingenuous ... it is too costly to do business in Vermont ... it is too hard to do business,"

Sounds like more whine than grump but you’d have to look ‘em in eye to know.
Perhaps taken aback by what were described as the business people’s “edgy” comments and questions, the Lt. Governor did raise the specter of revolt in classic Tea Party rhetoric

In response to increasing taxes and controlling expenses, Dubie offered this prediction, "We're looking at a taxpayer revolt."

Despertando O Gato Novo

Again with the Friday cat blogging

Never Cry Tritium in a Crowded Theatre

From the Vermont Health Department online

On January 7, the Vermont Department of Health was notified by Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station that samples taken from a ground water monitoring well on site (identified as GZ-3) contained tritium.

Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen. It is a by-product of the nuclear fission process in a nuclear reactor, and also occurs naturally in the environment in very low concentrations.
Most tritium in the environment is in the form of tritiated water, which easily moves about in the atmosphere, bodies of water, soil and rock.

The finding of tritium in ground water signals that there has been an unintended underground release of radioactive material, and that other radioisotopes may have contaminated the environment.

Perhaps a Vermont Health Department notification of a house fire might read as follows:
Vermont Health Department Notice of Rapid Oxidation and Chemical Process of Combustion

On February 11, The Vermont Health Department was notified by local private authorities that a previously unknown section of a house was found to be on fire. Samples were taken from a monitoring portion of the site (identified as 1-SOH ,1-Side of House).

Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material in the chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. Most rapid oxidation in the environment is in the form of fire and may easily move about. Slower oxidative processes like rusting or digestion are not considered to be part of this definition.

The discovery of fire in monitoring area 1-SOH (1-side of house) signals there has been and unintended combustion process occurrence that may need further voluntary monitoring.

Vermont Officials are conducting a thorough investigation to identify the magnitude of the occurrence and the source of the combustion process .Assistance will be provided by a number of private and state agencies, a team of Rapid Oxidation Experts (ROE’S) will be on site to analyze data.
This process if unchecked has the potential to cause physical damage through burning and can occasionally result in a phase transition in the affected mass if the temperature of the flame is hot enough.

Weakly, updates will be scheduled, soon

"...vigilant in prosecuting crimes against Vermont's environment."

"Had these actions not been reported to the state so quickly, there was the potential for significant environmental contamination at the site and surrounding community,” said Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell. "We will continue to be vigilant in prosecuting crimes against Vermont's environment."

No it’s not the leaking tritium at Entergy’s aging Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant but 23 buried waste oil drums the Attorney General is talking about.

A Danby Vermont man got a one to two year suspended sentence, probation and a $10,000 fine .The maximum sentence was a possible fives years in jail and $250,000 in fines .

After this success there is no word on what Vermont’s vigilant regulators may have in store for Entergy and their tritium leak.
Currently the leak has spiked to well above the federal standard for drinking water (20,000 picocuries per liter) to 2.7 million picocuries per liter. Tritium levels in reactor water usually measure 2.9million picocuries

Recently the Vermont AG submitted a request to Entergy for information about whether plant officials lied to state officials about the existence of underground piping that is the source of the leak. Entergy has proven reluctant in the past to release documents without a court fight.

Found: Broad Support for Climate Energy Policies

A national survey released by researchers at Yale and George Mason universities shows substantial levels of public support for the passage of federal climate and energy policies. Although there has been a drop in the public sense of urgency surrounding global warming, support remains. According to this poll majorities spanning party affiliation support many of these policies.
The survey found support for:
• Funding more research on renewable energy, such as solar and wind power (85 percent)
• Tax rebates for people buying fuel-efficient vehicles or solar panels (82 percent)
• Establishing programs to teach Americans how to save energy (72 percent)
• Regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant (71 percent)
• School curricula to teach children about the causes, consequences, and potential solutions to global warming (70 percent)*
• Signing an international treaty that requires the United States to cut emissions of carbon dioxide 90 percent by the year 2050 (61 percent)
• Establishing programs to teach Americans about global warming (60 percent).

These findings are reminiscent of polls early in the healthcare reform debate that showed broad cross party support. Healthcare support was never capitalized on effectively as the healthcare legislation lurched and stumbled its way through the legislative process. A similar lurch and stumble scenario may be playing out again with these issues.
This poll reports that majorities of Republican and Democrats support renewable energy research, tax rebates, regulating carbon dioxide, and expanding offshore drilling for oil and natural gas.
However it also shows that

Sixty percent of Americans, however, said they have heard “nothing at all” about the cap-and-trade legislation currently being considered by Congress. Only 12 percent had heard “a lot.”

Report PDF here Yale/George Mason Poll

Against the Grain: Biofuel v. Grain

According to reports based on United States Department of Agriculture information one quarter of all US grain crops now go into manufacturing ethanol based bio-fuel. This is a result of bio fuel programs and incentives started in the Bush administration. The impact is now showing up in world food supplies and costs.
Studies show that the grains grown in 2009 and used for fuel was enough to feed 300 million people for one year at average world consumption levels .

"Continuing to divert more food to fuel, as is now mandated by the US federal government in its renewable fuel standard, will likely only reinforce the disturbing rise in world hunger. By subsidizing the production of ethanol to the tune of some $6bn each year, US taxpayers are in effect subsidizing rising food bills at home and around the world," said Lester Brown, the director of the Earth Policy Institute, a Washington think-tank that conducted the analysis.

read the story at guardian.co.uk

Vermont’s Recovery Website Fails Transparency Test

The Vermont Recovery Office information website is rated among lowest in the nation. Vermont’s official recovery web site scored 13; it’s at the bottom with 11 other states.
We are tied with Alaska and fall below Louisiana’s score of 16.
Online news site Vtdigger tells about the study conducted by Good Jobs First, the results of which were released by VPIRG. This updates an earlier effort to rank how effective state recovery websites are in basic transparency. Vermont scored low in that review also.
States are judged on how well their sites convey information in these areas:
• categories of stimulus spending
• distribution of spending in different parts of the state
• details of specific projects funded by American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) grants and contracts incl. impact on employment

One of Tom Evslin’s prime tasks as Vermont’s Chief Recovery Officer was to make public information available about how our money was being spent.
It was the order of the day.
ARRA mandated that federal, state and local government organizations receiving stimulus funds report data on how and where these funds are being spent, so that citizens could monitor the expenditure and use of recovery funds.

The Burlington Free Press reports that Vermont officials now claim they wanted a no frills web page to save money. No estimate of the alleged savings is available. When asked about specific information one Vermont official said it was available by request and added

“We don’t withhold information. We have elected not to put it all on the Web. ... It would take a contractor to do that.”

Frills aside, they offer no explanation why, according to this study, even the basic website fails to meet so many requirements for accountability and transparency.

After less than one year as Chief Recovery Officer and with the state at the bottom of the pack by this assessment, Evslin moved on .He was appointed by Governor Douglas as Vermont Chief Technology Officer. In this capacity he will be in charge of reviving the stalled E-State initiative and overseeing the state’s new smart grid technology applications.

The Douglas borne manner of upper bracket tax relief

Vermont Governor Jim Douglas is asking all Vermonters to make sacrifices during these difficult times. State services are being cut to the bone, state fees are being increased and there is talk of cutting unemployment benefits.

However minus any hint of shared sacrifice Douglas has proposed replacing a 40% capital gains tax exemption removed last year that favors those in upper income brackets. This move and other changes he proposes would, according to the Times Argus, result in $9.9 million loss of state revenue.

He attempts to justify this by rising the fear that Vermont’s rich will have no incentive to stay unless their taxes are lowered.

Douglas would revoke the first of those changes, restoring the old capital gains exemption, but not the second, leaving the reductions in the top income tax brackets in place.

Douglas acknowledged last week that if his proposal were enacted it would effectively be a tax reduction for top earners. Vermont's having among the highest top margin rates risks driving wealthier Vermonters out of the state, Douglas said.

"We have to make sure there are people in those brackets in the years to come," he said. "I think we are going to see fewer of them."
In addition, Douglas would roll back changes made last year that reduced how much money could be excluded from Vermont's estate taxes.

How deeply Governor Douglas’ fear will touch those experiencing Catamount health cost increases, cuts in human services, housing support service cuts and limited state Medicaid programs remains to be seen.
No explanation was offered why an exodus of upper bracket Vermonters didn’t leave the state in droves over the past year. Perhaps some sympathy could be had if he were to document the coming exodus, show the empty mansions, the derelict condos, the luxury cars packed high with goods abandoned along the highway in hurried flight from the tyranny of a closed capital gains tax loophole.

Private Jesus Sights with Bible Codes

UPDATE:In a release on Thursday, Mr. Bindon’s son, Stephen Bindon, wrote, “Trijicon has proudly served the US military for more than two decades, and our decision to offer to voluntarily remove these references is both prudent and appropriate.”

These reference numbers 2COR4:6 and JN8:12 are biblical passages from the New Testament and unbelievably are intentionally stamped inside the tritium illuminated rifle sights supplied to the US military by defense contractor Trijicon.The UK is deciding what to do about the sights but New Zealand will remove the stamped inscriptions.

Trijicon confirmed to ABCNews.com that it adds the biblical codes to the sights sold to the U.S. military. Tom Munson, director of sales and marketing for Trijicon, which is based in Wixom, Michigan, said the inscriptions "have always been there" and said there was nothing wrong or illegal with adding them. Munson said the issue was being raised by a group that is "not Christian." The company has said the practice began under its founder, Glyn Bindon, a devout Christian from South Africa who was killed in a 2003 plane crash.

The Trijicon company says it is "Guided by our values, we endeavor to have our products used wherever precision aiming solutions are required to protect individual freedom." They received a $660million long-term contract to supply sights to the Marine Corps.

It is reported that Muslim groups reacted angrily Wednesday after it emerged that the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan were using rifle sights inscribed with coded Biblical references.
The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) called on US Defense Secretary Robert Gates to immediately withdraw from combat use equipment found to have inscriptions of Biblical references


2COR4:6 "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Second Corinthians 4:6

JN8:12 "Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
Book of John 8:12

Living Containerization: or You May Keep the Box

Worldwide,by the early 2000s, 300 million 20-foot containers were moved by sea each year, with over a quarter of those shipments coming from China. It has even been predicted that, at some point, container ships will be constrained in size only by the depth of the Straits of Malacca—one of the world's busiest shipping lanes—linking the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. This so-called Malaccamax size constrains a ship to dimensions of 470 m in length and 60 m wide (1542 feet by 197 feet).

The millions of containers used to ship the wealthy world’s products may now be used to house the poor. Intermodal shipping units (metal shipping containers) are widely being considered as potential housing pods. Emergency housing for use in disasters such as Haiti’s recent earthquake and even longer term housing uses are being explored.

I guess we should be pleased that a secondary use can be found for the ubiquitous symbol of world trade. It is a practical, well intentioned reuse of these containers but is this the best we can do for the chronically poor nations of the world? Wealthy nations should put some thought into changing this system that litters the globe with giant metal boxes, only to hand them down to the poor for housing after discarding them.

A university press release this week touts this container industry funded effort.

Many Caribbean countries import more containers than they export, which leads to the surplus of containers in those nations.
“The project has a double mission: to address the local need of providing adequate housing for people in need while solving a global problem of recycling – giving purpose to empty containers that would otherwise be discarded,” said a Clemson University professor involved in the container industry funded project

As part of this research, the group is studying the cycles of natural disasters by looking at the larger picture through mapping and logistics to understand how containers move, available surpluses and ultimately coordinating the cycles of natural disasters with the ebb and flow of container supplies worldwide.

Also posted at Green Mountain Daily

Minute Added to the “Doomsday Clock”

Well the originators of the “Doomsday Clock”, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists are feeling optimistic this week!
My guess is this is not your average jolly bunch of academics. They may not habitually be a pessimistic bunch, but that is just my assumption.

In a symbolic gesture reflecting how close humanity teeters on the edge of destruction, scientists turned the hand of the "Doomsday Clock" back one minute on Thursday in New York, citing a more "hopeful state of world affairs."

For the first time in two years, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists changed the setting of the symbolic time piece, moving the clock to six minutes to midnight from five to midnight.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS) was founded in 1945 by former Manhattan Project scientists troubled by their role in the creation of atomic weapons. In 1947, they created the Doomsday Clock to mobilize support against the use of nuclear weapons.

Tylenol,steroids and Ari Fleischer

Tylenol, steroids and baseball, stories land at the feet Ari Fleischer.
I noticed some odd connections between two news items today. Stories surfaced this week about James W. Lewis and his wife, who have supplied DNA and fingerprint samples to the FBI. Both were under suspicion for the 1982 Chicago-area Tylenol tampering case. Lewis served 12 years for attempted extortion, but no one was ever found directly responsible for the seven deaths from taking poison laced Tylenol.

The steps Johnson & Johnson, the makers of Tylenol, used to mitigate the PR problem surrounding the poisoning is recognized as being perhaps the birth of modern corporate crisis management. Since then, events that could otherwise have been total disasters are seen as manageable crises that, with the correct spin, can be handled in a way which lessens or blunts the PR damage.
The full flowering of crisis management (as pioneered in the Tylenol case) is in the sports pages today. Some characteristics are described in the book Damage Control:

The blurring of the lines between news and entertainment and the rise of the Internet is making aggressive responses to corporate crises more important than ever, Dezenhall and Weber write. Businesses will have to function like modern politicians: communications targeted at sympathetic audiences and pre-emptive attacks on opponents who will seek to undermine companies are the new rules of the game.

Now a man who helped Bush sell the Iraq War is controlling the spin.

The one-day plan — coordinated over the past month by Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary who runs a crisis-communications company, and the St. Louis Cardinals, who recently hired McGwire as their batting coach

He did it all in one afternoon, starting with a statement that was distributed widely to the news media, and that came across the Associated Press wire at 3 p.m.
The A.P. followed quickly with a story that featured an interview with McGwire, who subsequently spoke to numerous other news media outlets — including USA Today and The St. Louis Post-Dispatch; Tim Kurkjian and John Kruk of ESPN (both by telephone, not on the air); KTRS Radio in St. Louis; and The New York Times, before talking to Bob Costas live at 7 p.m. Eastern on MLB Network.

Mark McGwire’s full frontal corporate media blitz aimed at rehabbing his steroid tainted image is being managed by none other than former Bush White House press spokesman.Ari Fleischer the man that spun the Iraq War.

Vermont Yankee Groundwater Test Positive for Tritium

With a sneezing and wheezing the calliope crashed to the ground …



Around the same time today Entergy Vermont Yankee officials dealt with the news that their aging plant’s monitoring wells had tested positive for tritium (a radioactive isotope)Vermont Governor Douglas was urging the legislature to vote to extend the operating license and allow regulatory boards to handle the issue.
Today’s evidence of tritium in monitoring wells and an alarm caused by the oil level in a pump used to control the power level in the reactor come on the heels of Vermont Yankee new feel good about nukes PR blitz called I am Vermont Yankee

Reports say The problem at the 38-year-old reactor is similar to those cropping up at nuclear plants around the country, with the discovery of a radioactive isotope called tritium in a monitoring well.
Both Spokesman Rob Williams and William Irwin, radiological health chief for the Vermont Department of Health, said there was no threat to the public health and safety from the level of tritium reported. They said the 17,000 picocuries of radioactivity per liter of water measured at Vermont Yankee was 3,000 less than the 20,000 picocurie safety limit set for drinking water by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

But Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry engineer who has consulted with the Legislature on issues related to Vermont Yankee, on Thursday called the discovery of tritium on the plant site "a big deal."

"It's a sign that there's a pipe or a tank leaking somewhere" at the plant, Gundersen said. "It's highly unlikely that the highest concentration in the ground would happen to be at the monitoring well," he added.

This is a problem with older plants and its effect the cost of decommissioning could be significant.For a much more thorough run down of all things Yankee and tritium leaks in general Green Mountain Daily's Maggie Gunderson has more more.
Link here New Tritium Leak at Vermont Yankee

We are living in the future ...

One of my favorite blogs The Hyper Kitchen has the future now.
To be more precise The Hyper Kitchen has a great list of predictions made in 1981 for the year 2010 .Take at look at the World that was predicted.

Here are two past looks into the future:

In the year 2010

-A robot can now cross a busy highway without being hit

-Authoritarian governments in various nations are using mind and behavior control chemicals on their subjects to suppress dissent.