A TV news channel is facing embarrassment and ridicule after mistakenly showing a porn movie in the background of a news broadcast over the weekend. Viewers of a 5-minute news update at midnight Saturday could see explicit scenes from a Czech porn movie on a TV screen behind Sweden's SVT news anchor Peter Dahlgren.
The monitor - one of many on the wall of a control room visible behind the studio - normally shows other news channels during broadcasts. But staffers who earlier in the evening had watched a sports event on cable channel Canal Plus - which often shows X-rated films after midnight - had forgotten to switch it back, said news director Per Yng. "This is highly embarrassing and unfortunate," Yng said. "It must not happen again."
A producer quickly spotted the sex scenes and ran into the control room and turned off the monitor, Yng said. He said there had been no complaints from viewers about the mishap, but "enormous interest from media."
Shows you just who is most interested in pr0n.
Swedish tabloids on Monday poked fun at the steamy broadcast, jokingly changing the name of the show - Rapport - to "Rapporn."
Magnus Akerlund, who oversees the hourly news updates, told tabloid Expressen he was "shocked and dismayed" at the mistake. "It's a huge blunder by us," he said.
#3
protesting the fact that being mentally ill is not a lot of fun
Yes, I've noticed that people suffering from BDS are not a bunch of chuckles. Some of the sourest, mean spirited, and unhappy people living in one, if not the, most prosperous nations in the world during the best time to be around [check life expectancy rates].
An Arizona man died as he and his father were attacked by a swarm of killer bees as they prepared to repair a roof in Sierra Vista. Cochise County Sheriff's Department said the Africanized honey bees stung Charlie Pasley, 39, more than 300 times as he carried out repairs to a home in Huachuca City, 160 miles southeast of Phoenix on Sunday.
He died at the scene, according to Reuters.
The two men were working on a roof Sunday when they accidentally disturbed a beehive. When the bees attacked, the father ran into the house while the son tried to fight off the bees outside. The father was stung about 100 times, but his son died trying to fend off the killer bees.
According to reports the father was in stable condition at Sierra Vista Regional Medical.
Sheriffs deputies and firefighters used foam to placate the angry bees. Two emergency workers were stung, but were OK, Carol Capas, spokeswoman for the Cochise County Sheriff's Department, told the Sierra Vista Herald.
The sheriffs department released a public service announcement warning those living in the area about the swarm.
Reed Booth, a bee expert based in Bisbee, was shocked by the man's death. He said people need to understand the danger of bees. "All of the wild honeybees in Arizona are Africanized bees," he said. "If you have an existing hive, it is a bomb waiting to go off. It's not if it's when. People don't take it seriously enough." Booth urged anyone who sees a hive around his or her home or neighborhood to immediately contact a bee-removal professional.
TWO commuter trains have collided in a Nile Delta town north of Cairo, killing up to 80 people and injuring twice that number. Police said the two trains were heading south towards Cairo yesterday, when one failed to obey a stop signal outside Qalyoub train station, about 20 kilometres north of Cairo, and rammed into the rear of the train in front.
An official at the scene said an investigation into the cause had already begun. The driver of one train, coming from the town of Mansoura, was killed and the locomotive overturned and caught fire, police said. "We looked and saw the other train coming from behind, screeching," said Khalil Sheik Khalil, who was nearby. "We kept saying: 'Driver, driver, a train is coming.' So the [train] driver moved up 15 metres, and while he was moving, the two trains impacted."
The carriages were crushed together like an accordion...
A photographer at the scene said one train was derailed and was lying on its side, split into four parts, and appeared to have burned. Another person at the scene said the force of the crash ripped seats from carriages, which were littered with clothes and shoes. The carriages were crushed together like an accordion, he said. TV reports showed survivors and rescuers scrambling through the wreckage in search of survivors. About 25 ambulances rushed to the crash site, which was sealed off to the public by a large security contingent.
About 1000 bystanders and relatives of travellers anxious for news gathered near the accident site. Officials using loudhailers called on people to give blood and a queue formed in response. "Egyptian authorities ... have advised that to the best of their knowledge there were no foreigners on board either train,'' a spokesman said. "Nor were there any reports of any foreigners injured or killed in the crash.''
#3
Third world planes, trains, buses and ferries, why do they hate us?
Posted by: Steve ||
08/22/2006 8:44 Comments ||
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#4
Giving blood in India? By the time that single needle has been into a few arms, it would be about as dangerous to give blood as to receive it! When Mr. Wife was busy not dying of amoebic dysentary in the hospital in Bhopal, his colleagues paid extra for him to have unused needles (and called me daily to lie about his condition, the darlings, not even once mentioning the huge bugs crawling on the walls or all the other things I would not have properly appreciated, and about which I still don't know).
#6
Relentless demographic war on infidels. However, as the saying goes, "Man proposes but God(the true One) disposes. Even lemmings have their own safety valve system.
UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo have rescued several foreign ambassadors trapped in a house in Kinshasa by heavy shooting. The diplomats were meeting opposition leader Jean-Pierre Bemba in his house when a gunfight broke out. The group included the UK envoy and the head of the UN mission, the UN said. The incident follows clashes on Sunday between forces loyal to President Joseph Kabila and Jean-Pierre Bemba, who face a run-off election in October. "They're out and they're coming to UN headquarters. Everyone's safe," a spokesman for the UN force said, after the diplomats were rescued.
President Kabila's presidential guards opened fire on the house using tanks and heavy machine guns...
Witnesses told Reuters news agency that in Monday's violence, President Kabila's presidential guards opened fire on the house using tanks and heavy machine guns, Reuters reported. Mr Bemba's party said the violence was an attack on the presidential challenger's life, but a senior military official said Mr Bemba's guards had provoked the battle, the Associated Press reported. Mr Bemba is a former rebel leader and retains his own personal security force.
A diplomatic source told AFP the fighting had lasted at least half-an-hour, and had destroyed Mr Bemba's helicopter. The diplomats were rescued by a convoy of armoured vehicles in a joint operation by at least 250 European and UN peacekeepers.
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Posted by: Fred ||
08/22/2006 00:00 ||
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Prince Fahd ibn Saud ibn Abdul Aziz died yesterday at the age of 77 after a prolonged illness, the Royal Court announced. Funeral prayers for the late prince will be held at Imam Turki ibn Abdullah Mosque in Riyadh, said the announcement carried by Saudi Press Agency.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/22/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
So, what does that leave - only 164 more sons of ibn Saud?
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - The leader of a major gang on Monday defied Haitian President Rene Preval's orders to disarm, saying his followers would give up their weapons only if U.N. peacekeepers stop conducting raids in the slums.
Earlier this month, Preval told gang members suspected of being behind a surge of kidnappings and attacks in this impoverished Caribbean nation that they must disarm or face being killed. Gang leader Amaral Duclona's refusal comply sets up one of the biggest challenges to Preval since he became president in May.
Duclona said he and his men in the Port-au-Prince slum of Cite Soleil had planned to disarm on Monday but reconsidered because of what he called deadly raids by U.N. troops. "As long as (U.N. troops) keep attacking, we are not going to lay down our weapons," Duclona told reporters in the seaside slum, sitting on a red motor scooter.
A military official denied that U.N. troops were launching unprovoked attacks in Cite Soleil, a densely populated shantytown lined with bullet-pocked concrete homes, burned-out cars and mounds of trash. "If armed gangs do not attack us, we will not fire at them," said Lt. Cmdr. Neuzivaldo Dos Anjos, a spokesman for the military of Brazil, which is heading up the 8,800-strong U.N. force in Haiti.
And if they do, we're happy to tag them and bag them," he should have added.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/22/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
"Because of his defiance, Duclona now faces the fierce onslaught of the vaunted Haitian military."
#7
Bosnia, Haiti, Darfur...the UN'successful models of how to do things. Need further reason that its time to close the door on this relic of mid 20th Century fantasy.
posting in Non-WOT til more is known
A Russian passenger jet with 170 people aboard crashed in Ukraine on Tuesday after sending a distress signal, emergency officials said. The Interfax news agency, citing the Russian emergencies ministry, said 30 bodies had been found. The Pulkovo airlines Tupolev 154, en route from the Russian Black Sea resort of Anapa to St. Petersburg, disappeared from radar screens over Ukraine, Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Yulia Stadnikova said.
Pulkovo Airlines -- just when you thought it couldn't get worse than Air Ukraine.
Minutes later, the ministry said wreckage from the plane was found on the ground. RIA-Novosti news agency reported that the wreckage was found near the Ukrainian city of Donetsk and said rescuers were at the site.
There were 160 passengers and 10 crew members aboard the jet, Stadnikova said. Pulkovo airlines is based in St. Petersburg.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/22/2006 09:33 ||
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BERLIN - The Simon Wiesenthal Center urged Nobel prize winning novelist Guenter Grass on Tuesday to come clean about his time in Hitlers Waffen-SS by waiving German data protection laws to enable the centre to investigate him.
Grass, one of Germanys best-known writers and viewed by many in the country as a moral authority, has for half a century called on Germans to be open about their past. But last week the 78-year-old shocked admirers at home and abroad by disclosing he had volunteered for submarine duty at 15 but was rejected and was later called up to the Waffen-SS towards the end of World War Two.
Do as he says, not as he does ...
We feel that theres an incredible lack of clarity. His explanation has produced more ambiguity than clarity, Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, told Reuters by telephone. The time has come to come clean, he said.
Grass said that he had joined the SS in order to escape from his family and insisted that he never fired a shot. But some critics inside and outside Germany say that this explanation is too meagre and comes too late.
Zuroff, who has been hunting Nazi war criminals for the past quarter century, said the Wiesenthal Center has sent a letter to Grass asking him for details of his duty in the Waffen-SS. Among the questions the Wiesenthal Center has put to Grass are: in which part of the Frundsberg Division did he serve; was it Panzer Regiment 10; was he in the 2nd Panzer Division and did he know some specific members of the SS.
We have started an investigation, said Zuroff, though he said that Germanys strict data protection laws prevented them from getting access to key archives. We asked him for permission to get access, he said, adding that only Grass himself could waive the data privacy rules to allow them to probe effectively his Nazi past.
Don't count on it. I think Herr Grass has said as much as he's going to say.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/22/2006 21:00 ||
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Liberals frantic to have the Democratic Party recapture the Congress in November are casting their nets far and wide to haul in a new catch of young voters for future elections.
If fertility statistics are considered, that catch has to be a disappointment for liberals because there are fewer and fewer young liberal voters in the electoral sea.
The reason? According to Arthur C. Brooks, writing in Tuesdays Opinion Journal, its the "fertility gap" the dramatically falling birth rate in this country.
Liberals, he writes, "have a big baby problem. They're not having enough of them, they haven't for a long time, and their pool of potential new voters is suffering as a result.
Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Public Affairs and the author of the forthcoming book "Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism," cites the 2004 General Social Survey as proof that liberals are vanishing. The survey reveals if you picked 100 unrelated politically liberal adults at random, you would find that they had, between them, 147 children. If, on the other hand, you picked 100 conservatives, you would find 208 kids - a "fertility gap" of a whopping 41 percent.
"Given that about 80 percent of people with an identifiable party preference grow up to vote the same way as their parents, this gap translates into lots more little Republicans than little Democrats to vote in future elections, Brooks writes. "Over the past 30 years this gap has not been below 20 percent - explaining, to a large extent, the current ineffectiveness of liberal youth voter campaigns today.
And the news gets worse for the prospects of a lot of new little lefties arriving on the scene: The fertility gap is widening by more than half a percentage point per year.
Here's a peek into the future:
Ohio, a state that was split 50-50 between left and right in 2004, will tilt right by 2012, 54 percent to 46 percent. By 2020, it will be certifiably right wing, 59 percent to 41 percent.
California, currently 55-45 in favor of liberals, will be 54-46 in favor of conservatives by 2020 - and all for no other reason than multiple births from family-friendly conservatives.
Conservative Republican families, a majority of whom are pro-life and religious, tend to have more children, whereas more liberal voters, many of whom are unmarried and who support abortion, tend to have less.
The suicidal impulse behind the liberal failure to reproduce was viewed by a liberal newspaper columnist quoted by Brooks as a symbol of liberal compassion and conscience: "Maybe the scales are tipping to the neoconservative, homogenous right in our culture simply because they tend not to give much of a damn for the ramifications of wanton breeding and environmental destruction and pious sanctimony, whereas those on the left actually seem to give a whit for the health of the planet and the dire effects of overpopulation."
Writes Brooks: "It would appear liberals have been quite successful controlling overpopulation - in the Democratic Party . . .
"All things considered, if the Democrats continue to appeal to liberals and the Republicans to conservatives, getting out the youth vote may be increasingly an exercise in futility for the American left."
#2
Maybe the scales are tipping to the neoconservative, homogenous right in our culture simply because they tend not to give much of a damn for the ramifications of wanton breeding and environmental destruction and pious sanctimony, whereas those on the left actually seem to give a whit for the health of the planet and the dire effects of overpopulation.
Damn, I hope this self-righteous yutz followed his own advice and didn't breed, at all! Not even one. 'Cause he's right about protecting the planet...from the likes of him or her.
#4
"Gay Marriage" and "Abortion Advocacy" tend to take a toll on the birthrates, also.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/22/2006 16:05 Comments ||
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#5
Mullah, if you do the math, w/ regard to the abortions btw the time when RvW made abortion legal and November of 1986, the last period in which people could be born and still vote in the 2004 election, it's highly likely that Kerry would have won. I can't find my stats now, but that's not even contending that ALL of the aborted would have voted Dem, and did take into account normal voter registration and voting percentages. They literally kill their own chances at the ballot box by killing their young...
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/22/2006 16:24 Comments ||
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#7
Have you seen some of the Democrats at these rallies? Both the males and females arent exactly desired breeding stock and often its hard to tell which is which!
#8
There are fewer young liberals because the young people see "Progressivism" as the choice of braindead, hidebound reactionaries, and conservatism as the choice of those who try to use their hearts and brains to identify and analyze the real problems of the world. In other words, whereas in the old days the young followed their hears into liberalism (and the Democratic Party) then matured into Conservative Republicans, now they follow their hearts to the Republican Party. Goodness knows what they'll do when they become old fogies like us here!
#10
There are two election factors that are due to the birth disparity. The first are the decadal realignments of the electoral college due to red state/blue state raw head counts since Roe. And the second, actual voting patterns, which are only STARTING to change now (because not many 20 somethings vote). Roe was 34 years ago.
Posted by: A river, a boat, and no paddle ||
08/22/2006 18:44 Comments ||
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Posted by: Frank G ||
08/22/2006 19:47 Comments ||
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Liberals, he writes, "have a big baby problem. They're not having enough of them, they haven't for a long time, and their pool of potential new voters is suffering as a result.
James Taranto wrote about this at least a year ago (sorry, too lazy to find the links), but it's interesting that this angle is picking up steam.
#16
While I find this amusing - and I think having kids is a great thing - the idea that the way you win elections is to breed more votes is just one of those good lies that contains an element of truth.
This is just wishful thinking on the part of the democrats. Look at this whining comment: "Maybe the scales are tipping to the neoconservative, homogenous right in our culture simply because they tend not to give much of a damn for the ramifications of wanton breeding and environmental destruction and pious sanctimony..."
Yeah, right. The reason that young people today are turning away from the failed liberal ideas of the 20th is only because the democrats are so much better than the rest of us.
There is truth to the idea of breeding to increase your numbers. But it's not what is driving the young from the spectacular failure of the ideas put forth by liberal "elites".
#23
Will all respect due towards CNN, where did they get their data, EXIT POLLS? Didn't some of the 2004 EXIT POLLS show Kerry winning? The "most busted name in news" is going to have to do better than that.
#24
Broadhead6 has it right. This is one reason why the Democrats are hell bent on moving as many Mexicans as they can across the border. Every mother's son of the illegal sons of bitches will vote a straight Democrat absentee ballot whether he knows it or not.
#26
EG5369, I wnet through 5 pages of Google to find another more authoritative source without luck. I think it must be another Google selection function. If you can find another source, I'll be happy to accept it.
#27
No problem NS. It's just that ANY of the "demographic voting profile" data HAS to come from the infamous EXIT polls. I do not trust exit polls. The only hard data is the state by state actual ballot tallies: Bush won.
#28
if the boomers parents were primarily conservative
if you aren't going to be honest - what's the point of discussing it. Baby Boomer's parents were children of the depression and were far more conservative in values and on fiscal issues than were their children.
I don't know the actual average number of children parents of the boomers had - but I guess it would have been 4. The boomer's probably have an average of approx 2.
Thus - unless you want to include low income immigrants into the picture the very premise of this argument is bogus. But this author's point was that democrats were more enlightened and had less children - which hardly describes immigrant families.
This article makes about as much sense as saying that the wind blows when the trees bow down - thus the bowing of the trees creates the wind.
#29
"Baby Boomer's parents were children of the depression and were far more..."
Likely to be FDR democrats for life. One thing that I did notice growing up (like many here, I am a boomer) that although they were personally frugal they would spend "so their children could have a better life then they did." Hence the popularity of the Great Society programs of the 1960's: food stamps, housing, etc, etc, etc.
#32
although they were personally frugal they would spend "so their children could have a better life.
true. I also think that due to the depression, they saw many good people go on hard times and wanted to provide saftey nets. It's a good idea - but when people began to abuse them and the liberals refused to acknowledge that capable people also needed to be personally responsible and help themselves rather than rely on the handouts.
My parents were libs. I rebelled.
In the end - I think that's what it is about. It's the pendulum that swings. Things go to far in one direction and the next generation tries to achieve balance by pushing it back the other way.
(PRWEB) August 19, 2006 -- There is a lot of nervous talk circulating on an online discussion forum, Avian Flu Talk, concerning a mystery disease that has killed 14 people in the last two weeks located in the Nuwakot District of South Asia. This disease was first detected in dogs and chickens in the last week of June and had started spreading to humans in Netini. The symptoms of the disease are high fever along with bleeding from nose and mouth at the time of death, which is similar to that of the bird flu virus.
The bird flu virus was previously suspected in Nuwakot District on February 24, 2006 in which thousands of chickens began to die. With the developments regarding a lethal disease now spreading in that area, alarm bells are sure to ring among the local residents.
For up to the minute developments on this quickly unfolding story, there is an online discussion forum in which people from all around the world are discussing this latest event. For all of those who are interested in following this story and to see what others are saying, we would strongly encourage you to visit this website located at www.Avianflutalk.com. There is also a developing bird flu cluster in the Bandung area (again). Reports indicate beyween 10 and 16 people infected.
#1
"Nuwakot district, a part of Bagmati zone, is one of the seventy-five districts of Nepal, a landlocked country of South Asia. The district, with Bidur as its district headquarters, covers an area of 1,121 sq km and has a population (2001) of 288,478.
The district contains places of historical significance such as Nuwakot Palace located in the village of Nuwakot and Devighat located at the confluence of the Tadi and Trishuli Rivers."
#2
That site is for young eyes only.
Red on black, I can hardly read it and I find it
disturbing to look at.
Text is med grey on black. Impossible to read.
Who comes up with this shit ?
#3
Ty resetting your colour thingies, wxjames, and perhaps click on the View drop-down menu to increase the text size. I see the text as almost navy blue on white, with the headlines a reddish brown, and the comment thread the same blue against pale yellow. What colour highlight do Steve White's comments appear to you as? ;-)
#7
I've no idea, wxjames. That's just what everyone says when someone's screen shows Steve White as pink instead of salmon. I imagine, though, it's something one finds messing about with the control panel.
#10
The default for all comments, no matter who posts them, is yellow.
Each moderator has a unique color which s/he can use on comments either in the articles or in the discussion thread. However, that color is only applied if the mod chooses to. All comments on this thread are yellow because none of them was posted by a moderator using their mod color.
For instance, this comment should be yellow overall and
this comment should show up in my mod color of light green.
The D.C. Circuit today criticized the FBI for failing to use Google in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, which requires government agencies to release information unless "reasonable efforts" show that the information is not available to the public.
The case involved a request for 35 year-old tapes recorded during a Lousiana mob investigation. The FBI claimed that they could refuse to release the tapes under an exception to FOIA which allows information to be withheld when it could "reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal property." According to the FBI, release of the tapes would invade the privacy of the persons taped.
As the court explained, a person's interest in their own privacy is "diminished where the individual is deceased," and thus the FBI's right to refuse disclosure of the tapes hinged upon whether or not they made reasonable efforts to determine if the people on the tape were dead.
The court found the FBI's efforts lacking:
Why, in short, doesnt the FBI just Google the two names? Surely, in the Internet age, a reasonable alternative for finding out whether a prominent person is dead is to use Google (or any other search engine) to find a report of that persons death.10 Moreover, while finding a death notice for the second speaker -- the informant -- may be harder (assuming that he was not prominent), Googling also provides ready access to hundreds of websites collecting obituaries from all over the country, any one of which might resolve that speakers status as well.
As Howard Bashman notes there's no word yet on whether the FBI has to use Wikipedia.
#2
Um...it might be just a bit difficult for the FBI to do this if they still have the 386-based PCs they were using around the time of 9/11. I remember reading somewhere that Louis Freeh was a serious technophobe, and this is yet another thing that Mueller hasn't done jackshit about since taking over.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
08/22/2006 22:28 Comments ||
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#3
They just blew their last 150 some million attempt to use computers and are now spending 480 mil to try again.
They are COMPUTER MORONS!
Make them take the DVD based pre-101 courses we see advertised on TV every 10 mins after mid-night.
Or even worse COMPUTERS FOR IDIOTS!
To retarded to use google or even know what IRC and USENET are let alone HTML or FTP or TELNET.
Via Green Car Congress
A Washington-state energy company may soon announce it has chosen the county port authoritys industrial park here as the site for a $4 billion coal-to-fuel conversion plant. 25 such plants would replace all the 2.4M barrels of oil imports from the Persian Gulf at a capital cost less than $100 billion (and once built the plant will be useful for 40-50 years).
Port Authority Chief Executive Director Tracy Drake declined to either confirm or deny the rumors or identify the company when contacted Thursday. Theres been no formal announcement, he said. I can say there have been discussions with the company about locating here. The rumored company is Baard Energy, and phone calls left at its headquarters in Vancouver, Wash., went unreturned by press time Thursday night. But John Baardson, president and CEO of Baard, told the July meeting of the Ohio Coal Association in Columbus they had selected the county and showed slide photographs of an industrial park site, according to coal association official Mike Carey.
Sources say the plant complex requires 200 acres and would take four years to build, creating 200 to 300 permanent jobs and 1,000 to 2,000 construction jobs. The operation is expected to create the need for 1,000 coal-mining jobs and generate another 500 to 1,000 spin-off jobs in businesses that would supply the operation. The plant is expected to need seven million tons of coal a year to convert into 35 million barrels of fuel. That's $2.6 billion at $75/barrel. Even higher since the output does not need to be further refined. The Fischer-Tropsch process produces very high quality diesel and kerosene (jet fuel).
The news would come two months after the port authority announced it was purchasing 192 acres across state Route 7 from its Wellsville industrial complex. At the June 19 authority meeting, Drake said they were acquiring the property in part because he was in talks with a company interested in building a coal-conversion plant on the site. Drake said at the time the industrial park location was ideal because of its location along the Ohio River, a four-lane highway and major railroad. All of this would allow for the coal and finished product to be transported by barge, truck and rail car.
The process of converting coal to liquid fuel and natural gas has been around since World War II, having been first used by Germany to fuel the Nazi war machine. The process has been largely ignored since then because of the expense involved, but todays rising oil prices have made the conversion process a cheaper alternative. There have been a large number of Coal-Liquid conversion plant announcements, mostly in the 20,000 barrel/day range. The US is burning $100 billion/year trying to bring civilization to those savages. Five Years of War on Terror Has Cost $437 Billion. For that money, the US could build plants to replace ALL oil imports with CTL conversion. Or replace all non canadian or Mexican oil for $300 billion. Though doubling coal production is another matter but doable.
According to a news release on the coal associations July meeting, Baardson said the coal conversion process being proposed by his company would be able to supply cleaner diesel fuel for the U.S. military and they have been in talks with the defense department. It's crucial for the military to have fuel supplies not controlled by enemies. This war will be over when the muslims spend all their time and energy scraping up enough money to import food.
Posted by: ed ||
08/22/2006 10:35 ||
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#1
Uner existing technology these plants a huge producers of CO2. I very much doubt these guys could get this thing built in Washington state. Far more likely these plants will be built near coal supplies in the mountin states or midwest.
#2
Just a related trivia... Do you know that shale oil deposits (Colorado/Utah) are calculated as equivalent of all world's oil deposits combined? And that's the lower end estimate.
Economical extraction methods are refined at present.
#3
To be honest, if a bunch of gas stations pumped only Coal-to-Fuel gas and not a cent went to anybody in the Middle East I'd use them exclusively and pay $4 a gallon without a gripe. Perhaps more.
#4
It costs a little under $1/gallon to produce. Existing pipelines and tankers can transport it. Buy diesel cars (sorry Californicators, you are screwed) and this fuel does not even need to be refined, freeing up tight capacity. In addition diesel engines get 40% more mileage than gas engines so you burn a lot less fuel.
Posted by: ed ||
08/22/2006 12:51 Comments ||
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#5
They aren't building it in Washington but in Wellsville, Ohio. My family is from there. It is the living definition of Appalachian poverty. I doubt there are 300 legal jobs there now. It will be built there and they will love it. It will be much better than the WTI industrial waste incinerator or the Lisbon asbestos landfill.
#6
Plant more trees and lawn grass to soak up the CO2 and that problem largely goes away. American Forests Global ReLeaf project will plant trees at US$1/tree. Or the Appalachian strip mines can be treed over, after, for the same result, at about the same cost.
#8
Between shale oil, coal conversion and other methods we CAN get off the arab oil tit. It will just take foresight and guts to do it. I guess that leaves the government out of it though doesn't it.
#9
25 such plants would replace all the 2.4M barrels of oil imports from the Persian Gulf at a capital cost less than $100 billion (and once built the plant will be useful for 40-50 years).
A delightful vision, that.
Without wishing to be too cynical, please do not rely upon any of these changes coming very soon from an executive branch whose predominate source of wealth centers upon petroleum extraction. I refer any of you who doubt this to the amount of Republican (and Democrat) re-election campaign funding donated by Big Oil.
#10
Does anyone have a link to a serious economic analysis of this option? I see a reference to the capital costs of building plants, but not to operating costs, transportation costs, whether the process depends on a certain grade of coal (and how much of that grade we have, how easy it is to mine etc.).
I'm not pooh-poohing this article or the idea. I would dearly love to see us remove our economic dependence on oil from places like the Middle East and Venezuela. I'm just curious to see how the full numbers play out and what assumptions have gone into the potential decision to create this pilot plant.
#11
One other thought -- we have lots of coal, but Europe, a lot less. I wonder if these plants, if widely built, might have the side effect of tightening the Eurabian alliance to keep oil flowing to the continent.
Dont' mind me tonight, folks - I appear to be in a skeptical state of mind about all sorts of things and countries. ;-)
Estimates of the world's total recoverable reserves of coal in 2002 were about 1,081 billion sort tons. The resulting ratio of coal reserves to production exceeds 200 years, meaning that at current rates of production (and no change in reserves), coal reserves could in theory last for another two centuries.
The distribution of coal reserves around the world varies notably from that of oil and gas, in that significant reserves are found in the United States and the Former Soviet Union (FSU) but not in the Middle East. The United States with 26 percent and the FSU with 23 percent account for nearly half of global coal reserves. China (12 percent), Australia (8 percent), Germany (7 percent), South Africa (5 percent), and Poland (2 percent) also have significant amounts of the world's recoverable coal reserves.
#13
Thanks, NS. I grew up near coal mining areas, mostly bituminous, some anthracite. Did a brief google and didn't identify what grade coal is needed, but if bituminous is clean enough then yeah, we've got a lot fortunately.
The US military has been trying to get people to invest in this for a while.
The plant, which would take three years to build, would convert high-sulfur coal to liquids, gases and various byproducts, Drake said. The high-sulfur coal is desirable because of its high BTU content. Much of the $3 billion would be spent on scrubber technology to keep the sulfur from combining with rain and forming a dilute sulfuric acid deleterious to forests east of here.
There's not much anthracite outside NE Pennsylvania. Cost of extraction would be a big issue there. This coal will be strip mined, I'm pretty sure.
#15
Yeah, that makes sense. It's been a good long while since my 5th grade project on coal, complete with lumps of each grade and shaded maps. LOL
The house we lived in when I was a young kid was coal heated. You come to appreciate anthracite for hot heat and low emissions. But it's not always the best for other purposes.
Posted by: ed ||
08/22/2006 20:03 Comments ||
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#17
Interesting - thanks. It only shows very high level conclusions, not the real analysis that went into developing the numbers. But a couple points in the slides ed linked to. One is that they are aiming at the DOD market for synthetic diesel and aviation fuel. Not surprising, DOD has been looking for a supplier.
And the other is that a couple issues like water supply factor heavily into the attractiveness (or not) of the plan.
#19
NS, not sure what you mean by no money left on the table. Page 59 shows the Rate of Return on investment. At $63/barrel:
Barrels/day IRR
10,200..........75%
11,890..........86%
20,400..........95%
23,780.........109%
I think coal is now $7/ton, vs $5/ton. But oil/diesel hasn't been 63/barrel in a while. I dare you to find another (legal) line of business with that kinds of return.
There are other coal gasification tech that has the potential to be cheaper (e.g. molten iron reduction) at the cost of more CO2 produced per barrel.
Posted by: ed ||
08/22/2006 22:31 Comments ||
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A middle school teacher in Louisville has been removed from the classroom after burning two American flags in class as part of a civics lesson. Dan Holden, a seventh-grade social studies teacher at Stuart Middle School, burned two flags Friday as part of a lesson on freedom of speech, said Jefferson County schools spokeswoman Lauren Roberts said. The students were asked to write an opinion paper on the flag burning, Roberts said.
Which their teacher, an authority figure, just did.
Holden, a teacher in the school district since 1979, has been reassigned to non-instructional duties while the incident is under investigation.
Roberts said the flag burning did not appear to be politically motivated, based on an interview with Holden.
It's hard for me to imagine a conservative Republican teacher burning an American flag as part of a 'civics lesson' for the classroom. I'm having trouble wrapping my head around that one.
The district also alerted city fire officials. "Certainly we're concerned about the safety aspect," Roberts said, along with "the judgment of using that type of demonstration in a class."
Pat Summers, whose daughter was in Holden's class, told The Courier-Journal of Louisville that more than 20 parents showed up at the school Monday, upset over the incident "She said, 'Our teacher burned a flag.' I'm like, 'What?"' Summers said.
Brent McKim, president of the Jefferson County Teachers Association, said Holden has "been teaching for many years, and has by all accounts a good teaching record. It was not a political statement and was meant to illustrate a controversial issue. To fire someone because of that would be inappropriate," he said. "It wasn't like he was taking one side or another."
I beg your pardon? The 'sides' are: it's okay to burn the US flag vs. it's not okay. We all KNOW it's legal. You just forceably took the position that it's an acceptable thing to do in a publicly funded institution.
Beth Wilson, director of Kentucky's American Civil Liberties Union, said the school district is allowed to decide what's instructionally appropriate. But "if a school is masking their objections to flag burning under the guise of safety, it raises questions about freedom of speech and academic freedom," she said. She said the ACLU would monitor the case but is not involved at this point.
The ACLU monitors everything and can .... ooops, kids might be reading this.
There are substantial limits on 'free speech' in K-12 classrooms. School boards and principals have the right to decide curricula and instructional methods. They have every reason to instruct their teaching staff that burning a flag is not a proper instructional method.
Stuart sixth-grader Kelsey Adwell, 11, said students were abuzz about the incident on Monday. "They just can't believe that a teacher would do that - burn two American flags in front of the class," she said. "A teacher shouldn't do that, even though it was an example."
#3
A better didatic tool as well as a memorable pedagogical act would have been had the teacher gone Buddhist on the kids and set himself afire. Now that's one lesson the kiddies would remember for the rest of their lives.
#4
Just like burning a cross in the classroom would be accepted as a demonstration of 'free speech'. I'm sure the local Fire Marshal was impressed too.
#5
SOP35. Just look at the 19 year-olds passing through Boot. They've just been through 12 years of Public School PC indoctrination and there's NOTHING wrong with them.
#7
SOP35. Just look at the 19 year-olds passing through Boot. They've just been through 12 years of Public School PC indoctrination and there's NOTHING wrong with them.
The PC left is losing. Badly.
I'm not as convinced. For every 19 y/o who wants to serve his country and has his head on straight, there's another 19 y/o who goes to a radical leftist University instead, and comes out a good little PC moonbat. If the PC left is losing so badly, how does a PC cretin like Algore get half the vote, or a lying socialist leftist like Kerry get nearly half? I don't see the recession of PC, but the advance. You can hardly breathe any more without some PC bastard telling you it's wrong.
What's the old saying? The first step in fixing a problem is admitting you have one.
#9
"For every 19 y/o who wants to serve his country and has his head on straight, there's another 19 y/o who goes to a radical leftist University instead..."
And volunteers to become a nugget. The kids I've seen have their heads screwed on straight (well, for 19 that is) But at either 19 and enlisted or 23 and officer, we are getting good people. By and large, the kids have finely tuned BS detectors and can spot a phony a mile away. And your modern leftist is nothing, if not a phony. Thus the "WTF" response to an in-school desecration of the flag.
The Xbox360 generation will do just fine.
Of course having said that, there are the few dew-eyed in the save the gay NAZI whales t-shirts. But not many, which is why at most college demonstrations and such, you get more faculty than students. This is the BEST the left can do today.
#10
Here in KY the folks won't take kindly to this, honest teaching point or not. ACLU will have no effect, this guy's a gonner from teaching and should take care out in the parking lot.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
08/22/2006 15:49 Comments ||
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#11
I think the school would be wise to focus on the fire danger of this stunt. As much as I disagree with his act, flag-burning is not illegal, and dragging the ACLU into it just--pardon the expression--fans the flames.
Posted by: Dar ||
08/22/2006 15:52 Comments ||
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#12
no coincidence my son's about to enter the Army, and reads my National Review magazines. He's also a gamehead with excellent hand-eye coordination. I don't think he would've just sat there and let the teacher burn our flag - think of an 18yr old Rick Monday
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/22/2006 16:19 Comments ||
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#13
And volunteers to become a nugget.
Ok, I'm hoping really, really hard I don't put my foot in it again and learn about another cameltoe, but what is a nugget?
(CNSNews.com) - The Democrat-controlled California Assembly on Monday passed what conservatives describe as a homosexual indoctrination bill.
The bill, SB 1437, says California public schools may neither teach nor sponsor any activity that "reflects adversely" on anyone because of their sexual orientation.
According to the Campaign for Children and Families, a conservative advocacy group, SB 1437 would alter K-12 public education textbooks, instructional materials, and school-sponsored activities "to positively reference transsexuality, transvestitism, bisexuality, and homosexuality, including homosexual 'marriage.'"
The Campaign for Children and Families has lobbied against the bill and is now urging like-minded conservatives to contact Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"We call upon Governor Schwarzenegger to keep his promise to veto SB 1437, which micromanages public schools by forcing them to promote a gaggle of sexual lifestyles that disturb parents and confuse kids," said Randy Thomasson, CCF president.
"If Schwarzenegger abandons children by signing any of these school indoctrination bills, pro-family voters will abandon him," Thomasson said.
(Schwarzenegger did say that he would veto the bill, but that was before the bill's lesbian author removed a provision that would have required California textbooks to include positive portrayals of GLBT people in contemporary society.)
On Monday, before voting on the bill, seven Republican spoke against it and six Democrats spoke in favor of it.
One of those Democrats, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, admitted that the point of the bill is to offer nontraditional perspectives on marriage and family:
"The way that you correct a wrong is by outlawing," Nunez said. "'Cause if you don't outlaw it, then people's biases tend to take over and dominate the perspective and the point of view," Nunez was quoted as saying.
"If somebody wants to teach kids in kindergarten that Jack and Jill ran up a hill, this bill doesn't prohibit that," Nunez added. "But it does say that if somebody wants to say that if Jill and Jill ran up the hill and somehow that's wrong -- then this bill says that that is not acceptable."
He said the bill would make schools "safer."
But Jay La Suer, a San Diego Republican, said the bill brings the homosexual agenda into the public schools.
"It's about time we said enough is enough," said La Suer. "Don't push this down the throats of families who don't want it and children who don't understand it. This bill is a basically a predatory bill that preys upon the innocence of children."
Republican Dennis Mountjoy of Monrovia argued that public education is "turning institutions of social experimentation," where the basics are ignored in favor of "social engineering."
The bill passed the Assembly 46-31. It now goes back to the Senate, where final approval or "concurrence" is expected, before it goes to Gov. Schwarzenegger.
#3
Old 'tolerance': I have the right to disagree with you. I even have the right to oppose you, and to try and stop the implementation of your ideas. However, I must tolerate your right to disagree with and to oppose me.
New 'tolerance': You must agree with us. If you do not agree with us you are intolerant, and you cannot be tolerated.
#5
The California Dummiecrats are actually communists in the truest sense of the word. They are literally destroying California. It is rapidly becoming nothing more than a 3rd world hole. Schwartzie is really a Dummocrat in disguise, so he may very well sign something like this. Will it get worse in California. Without doubt. Mexican communists are gaining control at both local and state level. One of the worst, Villaraigosa is LA mayor,(and Arnie's pal) and he is pure poison.
#6
Its so great to live in a State that has no other problems so the legislature can concentrate on these deep social issues. Arnold will not sign this bill.
#10
Let's not forget that a legislator here also wanted "feng shuei" used in public buildings. Never mind that the levee's may break in the next quake. I've lived here for thirty-three years after passing through on the way back from Viet Nam and nothing they do here surprises me. As a lawyer, I get the Los Angeles Daily Journal, which contains all the appellate court rullings and is the paper you read and consult to be competent. Is is also like Pravda or Isvestia was in the good ole USSR. Every day there is a front page picture story about Valarie Plame, or the evil Bush Justice Department or how we need more illegal alien "legal resources" to help them get the public services to which they are so richly entitled. On the other hand, I am looking out my window at the palm trees blowing gently in the dry breeze and seeing the inlet to the Pacific from Huntington Harbour. It is political and cultural hell, but I just can't leave the weather.
#5
The study also showed new results on galloping glaciers, the name given to glaciers that surge very quickly for a few years, up to 50 meters a day, before advancing more slowly at a rate of 20 meters per year," he said. "We have identified, thanks to new analyses of aerials photographs and satellite images, almost four times more galloping glaciers, or 75 compared to just 20 in previous estimates," he said.
So does that mean there are less glaciers 'retreating' due to global warming, or that those 'galloping' glaciers are sliding off the island?
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/22/2006 7:11 Comments ||
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#6
This myth was debunked by numerous studies. Check this link at CEI.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A TV news channel is facing embarrassment and ridicule after mistakenly showing a porn movie in the background of a news broadcast over the weekend. Viewers of a 5-minute news update at midnight Saturday could see explicit scenes from a Czech porn movie on a TV screen behind Sweden's SVT news anchor Peter Dahlgren. 
TWO commuter trains have collided in a Nile Delta town north of Cairo, killing up to 80 people and injuring twice that number. Police said the two trains were heading south towards Cairo yesterday, when one failed to obey a stop signal outside Qalyoub train station, about 20 kilometres north of Cairo, and rammed into the rear of the train in front.
UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo have rescued several foreign ambassadors trapped in a house in Kinshasa by heavy shooting. The diplomats were meeting opposition leader 
Prince Fahd ibn Saud ibn Abdul Aziz died yesterday at the age of 77 after a prolonged illness, the Royal Court announced. Funeral prayers for the late prince will be held at Imam Turki ibn Abdullah Mosque in Riyadh, said the announcement carried by Saudi Press Agency.
BERLIN - The Simon Wiesenthal Center urged Nobel prize winning novelist Guenter Grass on Tuesday to come clean about his time in Hitlers Waffen-SS by waiving German data protection laws to enable the centre to investigate him.
Liberals frantic to have the Democratic Party recapture the Congress in November are casting their nets far and wide to haul in a new catch of young voters for future elections. 
(CNSNews.com) - The Democrat-controlled California Assembly on Monday passed what conservatives describe as a homosexual indoctrination bill.
