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Category Archives: Safety Violations
Illegal GMO Wheat in Kraft Mac and Cheese?
05 Wednesday Jun 2013
Posted by John Loeffler in Children, Consumers, Contamination, Corruption, cover-ups, England, Farming, Fraud, Genetic Engineering, GM Food, GM wheat, GMO ban, GMO Labeling, GMOs, Greed, Health, Health Hazards, Health problems, Kraft, Monsanto, Oregon, Safety Violations, tainted crops, U.K., U.S., Uncategorized, United States, USDA, Video, wheat
Americans, boycott, CEOs, children, consumers, contamination, corruption, cover-ups, Deadly, England, exports, farming, food dye, fraud, Genetic engineering, Genetically Modified Wheat, GM food, GM wheat, GMO Ban, GMO labeling, GMOs, greed, Health, health hazards, Health Problems, Illegal, imports, Kraft, Kraft Foods, Kraft Mac & Cheese, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, macaroni & cheese, Monsanto, Oregon, photos, safety violations, synthetic, tainted crops, Tesco, Tony Vernon, Toxic, U.K., U.S, United Kingdom, United States, USDA, Video, warning label, wheat
Should you like to call or contact Kraft Foods via the internet and inquire about this, then listed in the picture above is the UPC code on the box of Kraft Mac & Cheese sent with the warning label along with their phone number and web link!
See video here: http://youtu.be/4igqCeXcyFw
5/31/2013 Update: In the video above filmed on 5/31/2013, Flo, who is a Food Babe reader, visited Tesco Extra in Ponders End, Enfield, North London to demonstrate there are boxes of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese that are imported into the United Kingdom from the United States that require these special warning labels to alert consumers of potentially harmful ingredients that Kraft is using in their products. This video further verifies that Kraft's flagship product "Macaroni & Cheese" sold in the UK requires a warning label stating the product may cause an adverse effect in activity and attention in children and is made with GMO wheat. (Note: GMO wheat is illegal in the US.)
It was just announced that Kraft's CEO Tony Vernon made 49% more this year than he did last year. This fact kicked me right in the face. These are millions of dollars that could be used to stop the production of artificial food dyes. These are millions of dollars that could be used to improve Kraft's product line for the safety of Americans. These are millions of dollars that could send a statement to us that Kraft really does care about the safety of their consumers (like they've said in their canned written statement already).
While Kraft has reformulated their Mac & Cheese for other countries using safer ingredients and natural dyes – they continue to exploit and feed Americans dyes made with petroleum linked to a myriad of diseases and GMOs.
But wait – you must be thinking – what?! There are GMOs in Mac & Cheese? And it's not just any old GMO.
Kraft Mac & Cheese is made with Genetically Modified Wheat.
Below is a picture of the warning label that is placed on a box of Macaroni and Cheese (the same one we buy here) imported into the UK from the United States. The UK and other European countries require a warning label if a product contains artificial food dyes and/or GMOs. This label has a warning for both! Someone sent this in after a picture of it was posted on Kraft's facebook page (Thank you Flo!!!). This box of Mac & Cheese is available and sold in a special imported "international food" section in a grocery store called Tesco. The box clearly states that it is from the US – specifically "Northfield, Illinois."
On the label of Kraft Mac & Cheese there are 2 different warnings:
Warning #1: This Product May Cause Adverse Effects On Activity And Attention In Children (This warning label is required because The US version of Kraft Mac & Cheese has artificial food dyes yellow #5 and yellow #6 which are proven to be linked to hyperactivity in children.)
Warning #2: GMO Declaration: Made from genetically modified wheat. (May contain GMO) (This warning label is required because the US version of Kraft Mac & Cheese contains GMOs.)
Please note: It is uncertain at this time who places these warning labels on products once they are imported into the UK and this is something that is still being investigated. I know it is not the grocery store themselves and not Kraft, but likely the importer/distribution company.
2 New Pictures Above added on May 31, 2013
If Kraft is using genetically modified (GMO) wheat in their Mac & Cheese, it is SERIOUSLY ALARMING for a number of reasons:
GMO Wheat is not approved by the USDA for U.S. Farming. So where the heck is Kraft getting this wheat to put in their Mac & Cheese?
It was recently discovered that GMO wheat had been illegally growing in Oregon. So this begs the question – is there illegal GMO wheat in Kraft Mac & Cheese?
The USDA is investigating the illegal crop in Oregon – Don't you think they should investigate companies that are using GM wheat like Kraft too?
If Kraft is not using GMO wheat grown in the United States, they could be getting genetically engineered wheat from other countries that allow the production, and are importing it into the US. It is crazy to think that a company could be importing a crop that is not approved for use in the US and putting it in U.K. products without labeling!
There is only one other likely scenario for the GMO Declaration on Kraft's Mac & Cheese. The farm land that wheat is grown on in the US is so contaminated from GMO crops like corn and soy, they have no choice but to declare wheat genetically modified on the warning label when exported to other countries. This fact is very concerning if true and has dire implications for the entire farmland here in America.
The labeler could have mistaken GMO corn for GMO wheat, but if that is the case, Kraft needs to confirm this either way and RIGHT AWAY!
If Kraft is using illegal GMO wheat in Mac & Cheese – are they using it in the rest of their products too? This alone is reason enough to BOYCOTT this company – As if we didn't have enough reasons before!
How To Vote With Your Dollars And Hit Kraft's Bottom Line:
Kraft is a food giant which used to be even larger before they split with Mondelez late last fall. Here is a list of major brands that Kraft produces now that you need to know to avoid. I've included some alternatives to check out instead…
Study This List & Share It With Your Friends and Family
Don't Buy Any of These Products In The Future
Search Your Pantry and Fridge For These Products
Take Them Back To The Store and Get a Refund
Kraft Brands To Avoid Brands to Choose Instead
A1 Annies BBQ Sauce or make your own
Back To Nature Annie's Branded Snacks and Mac & Cheese
Bakers Organic Baking Chocolate by Sunspire
Boca Sunshine Burgers or make your own
Bulls Eye Annies BBQ Sauce or make your own
Café Collection (Coffee Mate) Use real organic milk or almond milk, dried non fat organic milk powder works too
Capri Sun Squeeze Your Own Fresh Juice or Choose Whole Food's or Trader Joe's (FYI – they recently found mold growing in Capri Sun packages)
Cheez Whiz Just eat real cheese
Corn Nuts Stick to real nuts
Country Time Make homemade lemonade or choose Lakewood Juice
Crystal Light Ban this altogether – this stuff is not good for your health, try infusing water with fruits instead
Dream Whip Make real whip cream instead or go with Tru whip
General Food International Recipe for homemade creamer from Deliciously Organic
Gevalia Larry's Beans or another organic coffee brand you like
Good Seasons Simply Organic has dressing mixes that don't have harmful ingredients
Gravy Master Here is a recipe for homemade gravy
Grey Poupon Annie's Mustard
Handi Snacks Mary's Gone Crackers and Cheese
Jell-O Mama Natural shows you how to make healthy jello
Jet Puffed Marshmallows Vegan Marshmallows without artificial food dyes and corn syrup are available at Natural Food Stores
Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Make your own or choose Annie's Mac & Cheese
Kraft Cheese Organic Valley or local
Kool-Aid Just don't do it.
Lunchables Make your own! Check 100 Days of Real Food for Lunch Ideas
Maxwell House Larry's Beans or another organic coffee brand you like
Miracle Whip Spectrum or Veganaise
Open Pit Annies BBQ Sauce or make your own
Oscar Mayer Applegate Farms
Philadelphia Organic Valley, Trader Joes has organic cream cheese
Planters Woodstock Farms
Sanka Choose organic coffee always
Tang Don't do it! Consider adding some fresh OJ to your water instead
Tapatio Choose an organic hot sauce
Tassimo Professional Do not buy this coffee machine – choose breville or cusinart instead
Twist Lakewood Juice
Velveeta This stuff is gross, just don't do it. Stick to real cheese – try Organic Valley
Yuban Larry's Beans or another organic coffee brand you like
Please take the time to share this crucial information with your family and friends. We must keep the social media pressure on Kraft – they need to know that we are not going away or letting them off the hook for this madness!
Source: http://foodbabe.com/2013/05/30/illegal-gmo-wheat-in-kraft-mac-cheese/
USDA's Watchdog Reveals "Egregious" Hog Slaughter Conditions
Posted by John Loeffler in abuse, Animals, citations, Contamination, Failures, food safety, food supply, Health Hazards, hogs, inspections, meat, Pork, Safety Violations, slaughterhouses, USDA
Abuse, Animals, citations, contamination, Failures, food safety, food supply, health hazards, hogs, inspections, meat, OIG, pork, safety violations, slaughterhouses, U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA
The Internal Revenue Service isn't the only federal bureaucracy to be recently taken to task by its Office of the Inspector General. Amid considerably less fanfare in early May, the US Department of Agriculture's OIG issued a report damning the department's oversight of pork slaughterhouses and trashing a USDA pilot program that allows plants to operate with fewer inspectors on hand.
First a bit of background. Every Cabinet-level department and independent agency in the federal government has an OIG—a kind of in-house watchdog. While some OIGs have been convincingly accused of being toothless, the USDA's internal watchdog has long been pretty blunt and straightforward. I'm still reeling over its 2010 report on the USDA's porous system for halting the "contamination of meat with residual veterinary drugs, pesticides, and heavy metals." Then there was this 2012 report about the rather cracked, so to speak, efforts to keep eggs safe.
The new pork report paints a Keystone Kops portrait of hog slaughter inspection, catching plants being cited for the same "egregious" (the OIG's word) food safety and animal welfare violations over and over again, with little fear of reprisal or incentive to improve. "Enforcement policies do not deter swine slaughter plants from becoming repeat violators of food safety regulations," the OIG concluded—including "violations as egregious as fecal matter on previously cleaned carcasses."
If that sounds like just an "ooh, gross" concern, it's not. Pigs raised on concentrated-animal feeding operations (CAFOs) expel feces loaded with antibiotic residues, antibiotic-resistant microbes, and heavy metals. (Their waste has also been spawning mysterious—and occasionally explosive—foam in the cesspits under the Midwest's teeming hog CAFOs.) This is not stuff you want to pick up at the supermarket along with your pork chop—and the USDA is the federal agency that's supposed to help us avoid it.
All in all, according to the OIG, the USDA's hog inspection service issued 44,128 noncompliance citations to 616 plants facilities between 2008 and 2011—and only 28 of the plants ever got suspended. And not a single one of them ever got the equivalent of the death penalty—withdrawal of USDA inspection, which would mean that meat from the offending plant couldn't be legally sold. And often the citations were for the same offense, over and over again.
The report lays out some specific cases. At one Illinois plant that slaughters about 19,500 hogs per day, for example, the OIG found that USDA inspectors had issued 532 citations between 2008 and 2011—of which 139 were for repeat violations. Of those, 26 were for "fecal matter and running abscesses on carcasses," and 43 involved "exposed or possibly adulterated products and the presence of pests on the kill floor." The result of these serial lapses? No suspension or other punishments.
Read more here: http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2013/05/usda-inspector-general-rebukes-hog-slaughter-conditions?utm_source=feedly
Vaccine Danger: Merck is Big Pharma's Monsanto
Posted by John Loeffler in Big Pharma, Bribery, Cancer, Children, Congress, Corruption, cover-ups, Deadly, death, Deception, Doctors, False Advertising, fines, Fraud, Gardasil, heart attacks, HPV, laws, Legislation, Lies, Lobbyists, Merck, Monsanto, Politicians, Profits, Safety Violations, U.S., U.S. Government, United States, Vaccines, Vioxx
Big Pharma, bribery, cancer, cervical cancer, children, Congress, corruption, cover-ups, Deadly, deception, Doctors, false advertising, fines, fraud, Gardasil, heart attacks, HPV, HPV vaccine, Human papillomavirus, laws, lies, lobbyists, Merck, Monsanto, politicians, profits, safety violations, U.S, U.S. Government, United States, vaccines, Vioxx
The pharmaceutical giant Merck enjoys vast revenues if they're able to advertise and "lobby" politicians to pass laws promoting their vaccinations, even while still paying huge fines and settlements for the toxic aftermath of their other medicinal drugs.
Merck has paid out a total of almost $5 billion to settle nearly 27,000 Vioxx civil law suits. This drug, intended for arthritic pain relief, created 27,000 cases of heart attacks and many deaths before Merck recalled it in 2004. Most of the suits occurred after the recall, which had raised a red flag for many Vioxx users and their surviving relatives.
Another $950 million was levied against Merck to pay for fines and civil settlements involving false advertising claims and fraudulent drug trial results for Vioxx. This hasn't deterred Merck from promoting Gardasil and lobbying for governmental support to vaccinate minors without parental consent.
Vaccine manufacturing is a good business for sociopaths. Drug companies are exempt from direct liability for adverse results from vaccines. Vaccines require less testing than drugs for diseases, and they're cheaper to manufacture. So they have a huge profit margin without financial liability risks.
Pushing a Dangerous Vaccine for a Non-Existent Threat
The scare tactic being used to promote Gardasil is cervical cancer protection. The human papilloma virus (HPV) has over 100 strains; Gardasil targets two that cause the most genital warts, while ignoring another 11 that can also lead to cancer. But ninety percent of HPV warts tend to heal on their own within two years. And they can be treated topically before then.
Bottom line, though inconvenient, HPV is not the death-warrant they are spinning it as. It usually goes away on its own or at worst is remedied by mild medical intervention. Even after young women get their three Gardasil-HPV shots, they still need to undergo Pap tests for early cervical cancer detection.
So Gardasil doesn't even guarantee protection against cervical cancer. This data is knowingly omitted from Merck's media press releases, doctor bribes, and political "lobbying" efforts.
VAERS reports 41 cases of cervical cancer following vaccinations with Gardasil. And VAERS (vaccine adverse event reporting service) is voluntary for doctors and mostly unknown to parents and vaccinated adults. It's estimated that perhaps only five percent of vaccine injuries get reported to VAERS. So these reports are a fraction of actual events.
Gardasil's mounting known death toll is almost 75 since 2009, at last count (2012). This is in addition to the serious adverse effects of thousands, of which over 10% are permanent, painful disabilities such as Guillain-Barre Syndrome or other neurological and autoimmune maladies.
Read more here: http://naturalsociety.com/vaccine-dangers-merck-big-pharmas-vaccine-monsanto/?utm_source=Natural+Society&utm_campaign=6c3190ed17-Email+155%3A+5%2F13%2F2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f20e6f9c84-6c3190ed17-323137773
Nuclear Nightmare: St. Louis Is Burning!
Posted by John Loeffler in Activism, air pollution, Aquifer, Cancer, Carcinogenic, Children, citizens, Congress, Contamination, Corporations, Corruption, Cover-up, covert operations, death, Deception, Department of Energy, Dirty Fossil Fuels, Dirty Politics, Disasters, DNR, DOE, Drinking Water, Economy, Education, Environment, environmental catastrophe, environmental disaster, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, Federal Government, Greed, Groundwater Contamination, Health Hazards, Health problems, History, Illegal Dumping, Jobs, Kids, Lawsuits, Legislation, Lies, liquid waste, Manhattan Project, Money, Nuclear, Nuclear Energy Industry, Nuclear Power, Nuclear Reactors, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Nuclear Waste, Nuclear Weapons, Pollution, Power, power abuse, Power-hungry, public health hazard, Radiation, Radioactive, Radioactive Contamination, Radioactive Fallout, residents, Safety Violations, Secrets, Toxic, Toxic Chemicals, Toxins, U.S., U.S. Citizens, U.S. Government, United States, Unsafe, Water, Water Pollution, water supply
1940's, 1970's, activists, air pollution, aquifer, Army Corps of Engineers, Attorney General, benzene, Bridgeton, Bridgeton Landfill LLC, cancer, Chris Koster, Claire McCaskill, conflict of interest, Congress, contamination, corruption, Cotter Corporation, cover-ups, covert operations, Dan Gravatt, deaths, deception, Democrats, dirty politics, DNR, Drinking Water, Economy, Ed Smith, Education, environmental catastrophe, environmental disaster, EPA, fire, floodplain, Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Actions Program, garbage, Governor Jay Nixon, greed, Health Problems, History, hydrogen sulfide, Idaho, illegal dumping, Jobs, landfill, Lawsuits, leached barium sulfate, lies, Mallinckrodt, Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, Manhattan Project, Missouri, Missouri Coalition for the Environment, Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, Missouri River, nuclear energy industry, nuclear reactors, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, nuclear waste, nuclear weapons, odor, Peter Anderson, public health hazards, Radioactive, Representative Keith English, Republic Services, Republicans, residents, Robert Criss, Rock Road Industries LLC, Rolling Stone, Roy Blunt, safety violations, secrets, Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal, St. Louis, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, state assembly, Superfund law, Toxic, U.S. Department of Energy, University of Chicago, uranium, uranium processing, Utah, Washington University, West Lake, West Lake Landfill
An underground landfill fire near tons of nuclear waste raises serious health and safety concerns – so why isn't the government doing more to help?
here's a fire burning in Bridgeton, Missouri. It's invisible to area residents, buried deep beneath the ground in a North St. Louis County landfill. But the smoldering waste is an unavoidable presence in town, giving off a putrid odor that clouds the air miles away – an overwhelming stench described by one area woman as "rotten eggs mixed with skunk and fertilizer." Residents report smelling it at K-12 school buses, a TGI Fridays and even the operating room of a local hospital. "It smells like dead bodies," observes another local.
On a Saturday morning in March, one mile south of the landfill, several Bridgeton residents have gathered at a small home in a blue-collar subdivision called Spanish Village. Concerned citizens Karen Nickel and Dawn Chapman are here to answer questions posed by four of their neighbors. "How will I ever sell my house?" "Am I going to end up with cancer 20 years down the road?" "Is there even a solution?"
In February, the landfill's owner, Republic Services, sent glossy fliers to residents within stink radius claiming the noxious odor posed no safety risk. But official reports say otherwise. Temperature probes reveal the fire has already surpassed normal heat levels. Reports from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) indicate dangerously high levels of benzene and hydrogen sulfide in the air. In March, Missouri's Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) – which has jurisdiction over Bridgeton Landfill – quietly posted an Internet notice cautioning citizens with chronic respiratory diseases to limit time outdoors. A month after Republic distributed its potentially misleading flier, the state attorney general sued the company on eight counts of environmental violations, including pollution and public nuisance. And this week, as part of a settlement set to be announced Tuesday, Republic sent another round of fliers offering to move local families to hotels during a period of increased odor related to remediation efforts.
Nickel and Chapman are stay-at-home moms; Chapman has three special-needs kids. Neither of them wants to spend her time worrying about a damn landfill fire. But until someone higher up the power chain intervenes, they have sworn to call municipal offices, file Sunshine requests and post notices to the community's Facebook group, no matter how unsettling the facts they uncover. Scariest of all: The Bridgeton landfill fire is burning close to at least 8,700 tons of nuclear weapons wastes. "To have somebody call you at 11 P.M., and they're in tears, concerned for their family, that's heartbreaking," Chapman tells Rolling Stone. "We're doing this because we don't have a choice. If we don't come together as a community and fight, no one's going to do it for us."
West Lake Landfill is an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund site that's home to some of the oldest radioactive wastes in the world. A six-foot chain-link fence surrounds the perimeter, plastered with bright yellow hazard signs that warn of the dangers within. On one corner stands a rusty gas pump. About 1,200 feet south of the radioactive EPA site, the fire at Bridgeton Landfill spreads out like hot barbeque coals. No one knows for sure what happens when an underground inferno meets a pool of atomic waste, but residents aren't eager to find out.
At a March 15th press conference, Peter Anderson – an economist who has studied landfills for over 20 years – raised the worst-case scenario of a "dirty bomb," meaning a non-detonated, mass release of floating radioactive particles in metro St. Louis. "Now, to be clear, a dirty bomb is not nuclear fission, it's not an atomic bomb, it's not a weapon of mass destruction," Anderson assured meeting attendants in Bridgeton's Machinists Union Hall. "But the dispersal of that radioactive material in air that could reach – depending upon weather conditions – as far as 10 miles from the site could make it impossible to have economic activity continue."
In a response offered to Rolling Stone, Republic Services says, "Mr. Anderson made his statement without any proof or evidence, and he ignored the fact that ongoing evaluation by MDNR, EPA and local authorities have confirmed that the increased heat at the Bridgeton Landfill has not impacted West Lake and does not pose a threat to the materials at West Lake." Republic Services also denies that it is dealing with a "fire" – the company prefers the euphemism "subsurface smoldering event." Under orders from the state, Republic is drilling holes to contain this "smoldering event." Republic estimates it's already spent over $20 million – about 0.25 percent of its 2012 revenues – on such mitigation efforts, "not because we have to, but because it is the right thing to do."
When Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster sued Republic Services on March 27th, outlining a host of alleged odor pollution and public health violations at Bridgeton Landfill, he described the risk of the fire contacting the nearby radwaste as a mere "remote hypothetical." But many residents are far from reassured.
The story of West Lake's radioactive waste goes back to April 1942, when a St. Louis company called Mallinckrodt Chemical Works began purifying tens of thousands of tons of uranium for the University of Chicago as part of the Manhattan Project. Mallinckrodt's workers did not receive adequate safety protections and had little knowledge of what they were dealing with – oversights that would lead to disproportionately high cancer death rates among workers, as documented in books, dissertations and journalistic accounts, including a groundbreaking seven-part series from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1989. Over the next 25 years, the company's uranium processing also created huge amounts of radioactive waste, much of which was secretly dumped at sites throughout the St. Louis metropolitan area, including West Lake.
Today, West Lake's radioactive waste – all 143,000 cubic yards of it – sits on the outskirts of a former quarry with practically none of the standard safety features found in most municipal landfills. No clay liner blocks toxic leachate – or "garbage juice" – from seeping into area groundwater. No cap keeps toxic gas from dispersing into the air. This unprotected waste sits on a floodplain 1.5 miles away from the Missouri River. Eight miles downstream is a drinking water reservoir that serves 300,000 St. Louisans. Worst of all: The materials dumped in this populous metropolitan area will continue to pose a hazard for hundreds of thousands of years.
The EPA's Region 7 is based in Lenexa, Kansas, about 250 miles west of St. Louis. The agency operates from a glass-paned office building that once housed the international headquarters of Applebee's. In an empty conference room on the ground floor, Dan Gravatt, the EPA manager tasked with handling West Lake, looks every bit the government scientist in his blue work shirt, khaki pants and thin-framed glasses.
In 2008, the EPA decided to cap the radiotoxic material dumped at West Lake and leave it there. Capping the site meant piling five feet of dirt and rocks on top and implementing long-term monitoring for contamination. Facing widespread public pressure, including a letter from St. Louis mayor Francis Slay, the EPA postponed its decision pending further studies.
Gravatt has a smooth, rehearsed response to almost any question about the West Lake landfill – a skill he put to use at a community meeting on January 17th, when more than 300 concerned citizens gathered to hear the results of those EPA studies. One person in attendance was Kay Drey, an 80-year-old civil rights and anti-nuclear activist who's been advocating for the removal of wastes from the St. Louis area for more than three decades. "I was very disappointed," Drey tells RS. "The evidence is clear. This is radioactively hot stuff and it shouldn't be in the floodplain by the Missouri river. And if they can't admit to that – well, it's incomprehensible."
Back at his office, Gravatt insists that West Lake's radioactive wastes only pose health risks for people who come in direct contact with the site, adding that the nuclear dump "doesn't pose any current exposure pathways to area residents as it stands now."
But Robert Criss, a geochemist at Washington University in St. Louis who has studied the issue closely, says the EPA is grossly underplaying a host of risks surrounding West Lake – flooding, earthquakes, liquefaction, groundwater leaching – that could pave the way for a public health crisis. That's not to mention the recent development of an underground fire nearby. Says Criss, "There is no geological site I can think of that is more absurd to place such waste."
Digging through old Nuclear Regulatory Commission studies, he recently stumbled upon what he describes as an error with major implications. For the last three decades, various government documents have referred to the waste at the landfill as "leached barium sulfate," a nearly insoluble compound generated from uranium processing. But Criss says that the NRC's own data shows the material dumped at West Lake contains far too little barium and sulfate to compose barium sulfate – by factors of 100 and 1000, respectively. "If I had this long to study something, I would be pretty embarrassed if this is what I came up with," says Criss. "It is inconceivable for these people to promote remedies when they don't even know what they're dealing with."
In a statement to Rolling Stone, the EPA disputed Criss' findings, but declined to offer further explanation, instead deferring to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Upon request for a chemical analysis proving the waste is barium sulfate, the NRC sent RS the same 1982 report that Criss disputes.
So what happens now? The EPA officially lists four potentially responsible parties for the West Lake Superfund site. One is the U.S. Department of Energy. A second is Cotter Corporation, a company whose contractors secretly dumped nuclear waste at West Lake in the Seventies, as uncovered soon after by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The others are Bridgeton Landfill LLC and Rock Road Industries LLC – both subsidiaries of Republic Services, which currently runs the landfill. Under Superfund law, these four parties must ultimately foot the bill for any remedial actions ordered by the EPA; at the same time, it is these same four parties that contract and pay for all EPA studies leading up to a decision. This might seem like a conflict of interest, but Gravatt insists it's all on the up and up: "We tell them what to do." It must be a coincidence, then, that the EPA's capping plan cost the potentially responsible parties only $41 million, compared to up to $415 million required to actually excavate the waste.
Missouri State Representative Keith English has another idea to fix the mess at West Lake. In February, English and 12 co-sponsors filed a resolution with the state assembly to transfer control of the site from the EPA to the Army Corps of Engineers' Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Actions Program (FUSRAP) – a proven success that has already cleared more than one million cubic yards of atomic waste from other sites in the St. Louis area, shipping the radioactive contaminants to safe disposal cells in Utah and Idaho. A nearly identical resolution filed by State Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal in Missouri's other legislative body garnered three co-sponsors. "The educated people that deal with this type of waste can see that there's an issue with just putting a cap on top," says English.
Unfortunately, anything that passes through Missouri's statehouses would only represent a symbolic victory. Since West Lake remains under federal jurisdiction, only an act of Congress could transfer the site to the Army Corps. For this reason, many are looking to Missouri's U.S. Senate delegation – Democrat Claire McCaskill and Republican Roy Blunt – to lead on this issue. "I hope that our resolutions pass and get to Senator Blunt and Senator McCaskill's office," English says. "Because they've been sweeping it under the rug for the past several years."
The Missouri Coalition for the Environment, which has advocated for the removal of West Lake wastes for more than a decade, in part blames Missouri's ties to the nuclear energy industry for the senators' lack of action. Both McCaskill and Blunt, as well as Missouri Governor Jay Nixon, have pushed for bringing more nuclear reactors to the state. Any more attention to a hazardous radioactive dump might get in the way of that messaging. "They won't touch this with a 10-foot pole," says the Coalition's safe energy director, Ed Smith. "It doesn't fit their narrative of clean nuclear power and 'jobs, jobs, jobs.'"
Blunt has yet to make any public statement on the issue, and his office has not responded to requests for comment. McCaskill, meanwhile, supported the 2008 cap-and-leave plan for the West Lake radwaste; on March 12th of this year, she sent a response to several concerned citizens, assuring them, "I will continue to monitor these situations and ensure that any proposal put forward to address them provides a safe, cost-effective solution for Missourians."
McCaskill's reference to a "cost-effective solution" didn't sit well with the activists in Bridgeton. "I don't give a flying fuck how much it costs," says Chapman. "This is about my children."
Bridgeton's underground fire was news to Ramona Herbert, who moved to Spanish Village with her family last November. She and her husband, Joshua, came here from St. Louis' inner city, hoping for a safer place to raise their kids. When the Herberts signed a five-year lease for their new home, no one disclosed to them that hot nuclear dumps sit a mile north from their children's bedrooms. No one told the Herberts that an ongoing landfill fire burns just down the street from their local Bob Evans restaurant. After two months in her new home, Ramona Herbert noticed an EPA flier on her door announcing a community meeting, but it meant little to her.
"My landlord said to me that we have a little sewage problem," she recalls. "So I'm thinking the sewage system isn't working right." But the stench only got worse, and she started having trouble sleeping. Parents stopped letting 14-year-old Mateo Herbert's friends shoot hoops in his neighborhood, because something in the air was making their kids' eyes water. And Joshua Herbert, who boasted a nearly spotless medical history, started suffering terrible headaches.
Ramona Herbert learned about St. Louis' nuclear waste legacy from a Rolling Stone reporter. As soon as she found out, she got in touch with Chapman, and she is now part of a growing coalition. Like hundreds of other concerned citizens in North St. Louis, she wants answers. "When were we going to be warned?" Herbert wonders, standing at the door of her new home. "When is it too late?"
Source: http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/312-16/17368-st-louis-is-burning
Keystone XL: Obama/Kerry Connections Portend a Dunn and Done Scenario!
Posted by John Loeffler in "dilbit disaster", Anita Dunn, Barack Obama, Big Oil, Canadian Pacific Railway, Corporations, Corruption, Cover-up, covert operations, Crude Oil, Deception, Democratic National Committee, Dirty Fossil Fuels, Dirty Politics, Federal Government, Fossil Fuels, Fraud, Greed, Influence, Investments, Kalamazoo River, Keystone XL, Keystone XL Pipeline, Lake Superior, Lobbyists, Michigan, Mining, Minnesota, Mississippi River, Money, Obama, Obama Administration, Oil, Oil Companies, Oil Industry, Oil Spills, Power-hungry, President Barack Obama, Profits, public health hazard, Railroad, Rivers, Safety Violations, Shell Oil, Special Interests, Tar Sands, Tar Sands Oil, Tar Sands Pipelines, Toxic Chemicals, TransCanada, Transportation, U.S., U.S. Citizens, U.S. Government, U.S. President, U.S. State Department, United States, Unsafe, Washington D.C., Water Pollution, White House
"dilbit disaster", AAR, Alberta Clipper, Alberta Tar Sands, Anita Dunn, Association of American Railroads, attorney, Barack Obama, barges, Berkshire Hathaway, Big Oil, bitumen, BNSF, Brandon Pollak, Broderick Johnson, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, Canadian Pacific Railway, corporations, corruption, crude oil, Democratic National Committee, Department of Transportation, DeSmogBlog, dilbit, dirty politics, Dunn, employees, fraud, government insiders, greed, investors, John Kerry, Kalamazoo River, Keystone Pipeline, Keystone XL, Keystone XL Pipeline, Lake Superior, lobbyists, Minnesota, Mississippi River, Obama, Obama Administration, oil spills, Organizing for America, power-hungry, railroad, Railway, Rivers, Robert Bauer, Shell Oil, SKDKnickerbocker, tar sands oil, Tar Sands Pipelines, TransCanada, TransCanada Corporation, U.S. State Department, Warren Buffet, White House
Double-dipping is a "no go" in the real world of eating chips and salsa with a circle of friends but an everyday reality in the world of lobbyists and PR professionals.
Enter double-dipper Anita Dunn, former White House Communications Director for President Barack Obama who now runs the firm SKDKnickerbocker (Squier Knapp Dunn), a firm that "brings unparalleled strategic communications experience to Fortune 500 companies, political groups and candidates, non-profits, and labor organizations."
Dip one: TransCanada Corporation, which SKDK does public relations work for, as revealed in an Oct. 2012 New York Times investigation. TransCanada is the multinational corporation currently building the contentious southern half of theKeystone XL (KXL) tar sands pipeline, following the dictates of a March 2012 Obama Administration Executive Order. Within months, the fate of the border-crossing Alberta to Port Arthur, TX KXL export pipeline will also likely be decided by the U.S. State Department.
Dip two: Another SKDKnickerbocker client is the Association of American Railroads (AAR), the American Petroleum Institute trade association equivalent for the freight rail industry. Even without KXL – as covered previously on DeSmogBlog – tar sands crude can be moved to targeted markets via freight rail (coupled with pipeline capacity increases of other tubes and potential barging along Lake Superior).
Beneficiaries of tar sands transport via rail include AAR dues-paying member Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF), owned by major Obama donor Warren Buffett via his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway. Shell Oil – a major Alberta tar sands extractor – also pays AAR member dues, which indicates Big Oil understands the strategic importance of rail transport.
Dunn's firm, in short, stands to gain from tar sands extraction with or without a KXL northern half, a classic case of double-dipping.
Keystone XL: Dunn's Obama/Kerry Connections Portend a Dunn and Done Scenario
Dunn has maximized her White House insider access status since leaving the Administration in 2009 and starting SKDK.
"Dunn regularly attends closed-door political strategy briefings with top Obama aides; White House records show she has visited more than 100 times since leaving her communications job," the Oct. 2012 New York Times piece explained. "She is now serving as a paid adviser to the Democratic National Committee."
Dunn's husband Robert "Bob" Bauer also maintains extremely close ties to the Obama Administration, serving as Obama's personal and political attorney.
"Bauer also will play that role for Obama's new political network, Organizing for America, and the Democratic National Committee, which is administering the network," explained a Feb. 2009 article in Politico, "Bauer's new, unmatched legal power."
In Nov. 2009, Obama named Bauer White House Counsel, a job he left in June 2011 to return to his private practice at Perkins Coie, "focusing on serving as general counsel to the President's reelection campaign, general counsel to the Democratic National Committee and personal lawyer to President Obama," according to the Perkins Coie website.
SKDK's Bill Knapp, described by the New York Observer's Ben Smith (now Editor-in-Chief of BuzzFeed) as "one of the Democratic Party's most sought-after operatives" helped develop the media strategy and advertising" for Kerry for President 2004 that culminated with a defeat to George W. Bush, while Bauer worked as legal Counsel for Kerry's campaign. Furthermore, Dunn served as Communications Director from 1987-1990 for then-U.S. Sen. Kerry. The Kerry-lead State Department has the final say on whether the KXL north proposal becomes a reality.
As icing on the cake, numerous TransCanada lobbyists have passed through the government-industry revolving door, entering both executive-level agencies and President Obama's inner-circle.
Brandon Pollak, served as Deputy National Director of Grassroots Fundraising for the Kerry for President 2004 campaign. Broderick Johnson went from lobbying for TransCanada to becoming Obama's senior campaign advisor for his 2012 race against Republican Mitt Romney.
With all of these lobbyists using their ties to the White House and State Department, it looks as if the KXL decision is already a checkmate, Dunn and done scenario.
If KXL Fails, There's Always Rail, Barge, Increased Pipeline Capacity Supplements
Dunn's firm will cash in with or without KXL due to its client relationship with AAR. Even without KXL – or for that matter even with it – massive amounts of tar sands dilbit are already transported to market by freight rail, a midstream market brought to the public's attention after the March 2013 Canadian Pacific Rail spill of 30,000 gallons of tar sands bitumen in Minnesota. Canadian Pacific is also an AAR dues-paying member.
In its Aug. 2011 Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS), the State Department said that rail currently has the capacity to transport over 1 million barrels of tar sands per day to market.
"Even in a situation where there was a total freeze in pipeline capacity for 20 years, it appears that there is sufficient capacity on existing rail tracks to accommodate shipping…through at least 2030," the SEIS explained. "[S]tatistics from the Department of Transportation,…conservatively estimated that the existing cross-border rail lines from Canada to the U.S. could accommodate crude oil train shipments of over 1,000,000 bpd (barrels per day)."
As a case in point, BNSF is eager to see KXL fail, seeing it as an economic opportunity of epic proportions for its rails.
"Whatever people bring to us, we're ready to haul [and if KXL] doesn't happen, we're here to haul," Krista York-Wooley, a spokeswoman for BNSF said in a Feb. 2012 interview with Bloomberg.
Then there's the option of barging tar sands crude to markets utilizing Lake Superior as a thoroughfare, which Calumet Specialty Products Partners is considering. Platts referred to this proposal as "the Great Lakes option for getting Canadian oil to market."
Lastly, in Nov. 2012, Enbridge – whose Line 2 recently spilled 600 gallons of oil in Viking, MN and whose Line 6B spewed over 1 million gallons of tar sands bitumen into the Kalamazoo River in what's now referred to as the "dilbit disaster" – applied for a permit to increase capacity of its Alberta Clipper tar sands pipeline approved by the Obama State Dept. in Aug. 2009. The permit requests an increase in capacity from 450,000 barrels per day to 800,000 barrels per day. The company also applied for a permit to increase Line 6B's capacity to 500,000 barrels per day in May 2012, up from 240,000 barrels per day.
"We're very concerned this has flown under the public's radar," Peter LaFontaine of the National Wildlife Federation told Bloomberg in a May 1, 2013 story. "The public doesn't seem to have the same sort of attention for pipeline expansions as they do for pipeline construction. But we're talking about a lot of crude."
Cashing in on Destructive Game of Tar Sands "Whac-A-Mole"
In a Nov. 2012 article on rail serving as an alternative midstream method to pipelines for tar sands, Grist Senior Editor Lisa Hymas described the situation as one akin to a game of "Whac-a-Mole."
"It's like a big game of Whac-a-Mole, except what's at stake isn't a cheap teddy bear at Chuck E. Cheese but the health of the planet and civilization as we know it," she wrote.
Rather than cashing in on juvenile toys with tokens gained from winning several rounds of Whac-a-Mole, though, Dunn and SKDK are gaining real-life tokens – fat wads of cash – cashing in on this high-stakes game of tar sands Whac-a-Mole.
Source: http://www.nationofchange.org/obama-s-former-communications-director-s-firm-does-pr-keystone-xl-pipeline-tar-sands-rail-transpor-0
Tar Sands Tax Loophole Cost US Oil Spill Fund $48 Million in 2012, Will Cost $400 Million by 2017
Posted by John Loeffler in Alberta Tar Sands, Americans, Arkansas, Big Oil, Bitumen, BP, British Petroleum, Canada, Corruption, Cover-up, covert operations, Crude Oil, Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Dirty Fossil Fuels, environmental catastrophe, environmental disaster, Exxon Valdez, ExxonMobil, Failures, Federal Government, Gas, Greed, History, Internal Revenue Service, IRS, Kalamazoo River, Leaks, Liability Trust Fund, Lies, Loopholes, Mayflower, Michigan, Money, Natural Gas, Natural Resources Committee, Oil, Oil Companies, Oil Industry, Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, Oil Spills, Pegasus Pipeline, power abuse, Power-hungry, Safety Violations, Tar Sands, Tar Sands Oil, Tar Sands Pipelines, tax evasion, Tax-dodging, Taxes, Taxpayers, U.S., U.S. Government, Uncategorized, United States, Unsafe, Water Pollution
Alberta Tar Sands, Arkansas, bitumen, BP, Canada, corruption, crude oil, Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Dirty Fossil Fuels, Enbridge, environmental catastrophe, environmental disaster, Exxon, Exxon Valdez, ExxonMobil, Federal Government, gas, Kalamazoo River, Liability Trust Fund, loopholes, Mayflower, Natural Resources Committee, oil, Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, oil spills, Pegasus Pipeline, tar sands oil, Tar Sands Pipelines, taxes, taxpayers, U.S, United States
A tax loophole exempting tar sands pipeline operators from paying an eight-cent tax per barrel of oil they transport in the US is costing the federal Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund millions of dollars every year. With expected increases in tar sands oil production over the next five years, this loophole may have deprived US citizens of $400-million dollars worth of critical oil-spill protection funds come 2017.
According to a report by the US Natural Resources Committee the federal government pays for immediate oil-spill response from the Liability Trust Fund which is supported by an excise tax on all crude oil and gas products in the US.
But in 2011 the Internal Revenue Service exempted tar sands oil from the tax, saying the substance did not fit the characterization of crude oil.
This exemption has come under scrutiny this week after Exxon Mobil's Pegasus pipeline ruptured in Mayflower, Arkansas, releasing 300,000 litres of tar sands oil and water into a residential neighbourhood and surrounding wetlands. Because the line carried tar sands-derived oil from Alberta, Exxon was exempt from paying into the spill liability fund for the corrosive fuel's potential cleanup.
The Pegasus pipeline was built in the 1940s to carry regular crude north from the Gulf Coast. In 2006, Exxon reversed the flow of the 1300 kilometre line in order to transport tar sands diluted bitumen from Illinois to the coast.
According to the Natural Resources Committee, "the spill response fund is currently at risk from running out of money because of the combined costs of BP's Deepwater Horizon spill and Enbridge's Kalamazoo spill of tar sands oil…And Enbridge could still file a claim against the fund to recoup some of its costs because the company has spent well over the liability cap of $350 million for such spills."
The Enbridge disaster in Michigan's Kalamazoo river has cost over $820 million, making it the most expensive onshore cleanup in US history.
Enbridge, the company currently vying to build a 1172 kilometre-long pipeline from Alberta to the British Columbia coast, currently has no spill-response plan – for either onshore or offshore spills – prepared for the project.
During cross-examination in the Northern Gateway Pipeline hearings in BC, Enbridge admitted they will have no spill response plan until six months before the proposed tar sands line will begin operation.
An investigation in the Enbridge Kalamazoo disaster found the company – due to "pervasive organizational failures" – improperly respond to the pipeline breach. The US National Transportation Safety Board likened Enbridge employees to the Keystone Kops – a clumsy, incompetent troups of cops from the silent films of the early 20th century.
The estimated cleanup cost for conventional oil run at about $2000 per barrel of oil. Tar sands diluted bitumen cleanup is estimated to cost an average $29,000 per barrel of spilled oil.
The Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund was established in the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, when the enormous costs of oil spill recovery were first understood on a grand scale, to ensure adequate cleanup funds were available to protect local residents and ecosystems.
As Climate Progress reported in 2010, Exxon refused to shoulder the cost of cleanup in the Valdez, where more than 11 million gallons of crude oil contaminated almost 3000 kilometres of shoreline.
"Exxon fought paying damages and appealed court decisions multiple times, and they have still not paid in full. Years of fighting and court appeals on Exxon's part finally concluded with a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2008 that found that Exxon only had to pay $507.5 million of the original 1994 court decree for $5 billion in punitive damages. And as of 2009, Exxon had paid only $383 million of this $507.5 million to those who sued, stalling on the rest and fighting the $500 million in interest owed to fishermen and other small businesses from more than 12 years of litigation.
Twenty years later, some of the original plaintiffs are no longer alive to receive, or continue fighting for, their damages. An estimated 8,000 of the original Exxon Valdez plaintiffs have died since the spill while waiting for their compensation as Exxon fought them in court."
And as DeSmogBlog's Ben Jervey reports, Exxon has a long and litigious history of evading cleanup costs.
The US is facing a dramatic increase of tar sands oil imports. As the National Resource Committee estimates, production in the Alberta tar sands is projected to rise to over 2.7 million barrels per day in 2017. The tar sands industry projects figures as high as 5 million barrels per day in 2030 and 6 million per day in 2035. Currently approved projects have the capacity to produce 5.2 million barrels per day.
"Tar sands is already the dirtiest, riskiest oil around. It shouldn't get a free ride from the U.S. taxpayer when it comes to paying into this vital spill response fund," said Rep. Markey, the Ranking Member of the Natural Resources Committee. "Oil companies already receive outrageous tax subsidies that total billions of dollars and there is no defensible reason for this oil spill free ride to be added to that dubious list of loopholes."
Regardless of how many barrels of tar sands oil will be traversing US soil, none of them should be exempt from spill liability taxes. If anything, corrosive diluted bitumen should be taxed more for the inherent dangers it present to local ecologies and communities during its production, refining, and transport.
Source: http://desmog.ca/2013/04/03/tar-sands-tax-loophole-cost-us-oil-spill-fund-48-million-2012-will-cost-400-million-2017
Breaking: Enbridge Tar Sands Oil Pipeline Spills in Minnesota!
Posted by John Loeffler in Alberta Tar Sands, Canada, Corruption, Dirty Fossil Fuels, Enbridge, environmental catastrophe, environmental disaster, Greed, Keystone XL, Keystone XL Pipeline, Minnesota, Oil, Oil Spills, Safety Violations, Tar Sands, Tar Sands Oil, Tar Sands Pipelines, U.S., U.S. Coast Guard, Uncategorized, United States
Alberta, Alberta Clipper, Alberta Tar Sands, Canada, DeSmog, Edmonton, Enbridge, Indigenous Environmental Network, Kalamazoo River, Keystone Pipeline, Minnesota, National Energy Board, oil, Oil spill, safety violations, tar sands oil, Tar Sands Pipelines, U.S. Coast Guard, Viking, Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin
UPDATES COMING PENDING FURTHER INFORMATION. Enbridge's Line 2 **Line 67 tar sands** pipeline has leaked an estimated 600 gallons of crude oil at its pump station near Viking, Minnesota. Line 2 was built in 1956 and has a history of spills. Regulators ordered Enbridge to reduce its Line 2 operating pressure in October 2010 following the company's Kalamazoo River tar sands spill.
The Enbridge Viking pump station also receives oil from the Alberta Clipper (aka Line 67 pipeline) that carries heavy crude oil and tar sands bitumen from the Alberta tar sands region south from Hardisty to Superior, Wisconsin and refineries in the midwestern United States. It is unclear whether the product that spilled was tar sands-derived diluted bitumen. According to a link provided by Enbridge subsequent to this story's original posting, Line 2 begins in Edmonton and carries petroleum products, including crude oil, from Edmonton to Superior. Both lines pass through the Viking pump station.
The U.S. Coast Guard National Response Center website reports the details of the incident, which happened last night:
"1044848","1044848″,"1044848″,"INCIDENT","23-APR-2013 17:09″,"THE CALLER REPORTED THAT A LEAK ON A PRESSURE TRANSMITTER RESULTED IN A RELEASE OF CRUDE OIL.","FIXED","EQUIPMENT FAILURE","23-APR-2013 15:45″,"18060 203TH ST NW","MN","VIKING","MARSHALL","ENBRIDGE ENERGY","SOIL","OIL: CRUDE"
DeSmog was alerted by the Indigenous Environmental Network, which is en route to the spill site to gather more information. Stay tuned for updates to this post below.
**This story originally reported that Enbridge Line 67 tar sands pipeline suffered the leak, but Enbridge subsequently confirmed the spill was on Line 2. DeSmog regrets the error.**
Enbridge was warned earlier this month by the National Energy Board that the company "is not abiding by federal safety standards at 117 pumping stations along its extensive crude oil network in Canada, putting the safety of the public at risk."
The Line 2 leak has stopped and Enbridge is working on cleanup operations now. The spill does not appear to have reached water. For more details, visit http://enbridgeus.com/Viking/.Similar to the controversial Keystone XL pipeline battle, Enbridge is currently seeking a Presidential Permit from President Barack Obama to expand the capacity of the Alberta Clipper Line 67 where it crosses the international border. The Alberta Clipper pipeline currently transports approximately 450,000 bpd of crude oil from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin to the midwestern U.S.
The Calgary Herald reported in June 2011 about Line 2 (emphasis added):
"Enbridge's Line 6 pipeline, linking Griffith, Ind. to Sarnia, Ont., was shut down temporarily by American regulators last July following a rupture and spillage of more than 3 million litres of crude oil into the Kalamazoo River near Marshall, Mich. Three months later, the National Energy Board, which was monitoring the U.S. investigation, quietly ordered a 20 per cent pressure reduction on Enbridge's Line 2 Canadian pipeline, which links Edmonton to Superior, Wis., along sections that contained pre-1970s flash-welded pipe."
DeSmog has confirmed at least two previous spills on Line 2, one in Minnesota in2004 that spilled over 1,000 barrels and another in North Dakota in 2010 that spilled over 3,000 barrels.
Reuters reported in 2011 (emphasis added):
"Canadian regulators ordered Enbridge Inc (ENB.TO) to cut pressure on its 440,000 barrel per day Line 2 last October after raising concerns that the company might not be able to detect cracks in the oil pipeline. The National Energy Board's order remains in effect. It restricts the pipeline, which runs from Edmonton, Alberta, to Superior, Wisconsin, to operating at 80 percent of normal pressure, according to documents provided by the regulator. The board said it was concerned that Enbridge might not be able to consistently identify cracks in pipes laid before the 1970s using flash-welding techniques."
Here is the incident report on the Line 2 spill on April 23, 2013, pasted directly from the Coast Guard National Response Center website:
NATIONAL RESPONSE CENTER 1-800-424-8802
*** For Public Use ***
Information released to a third party shall comply with any
applicable federal and/or state Freedom of Information and Privacy Laws
Incident Report # 1044848
INCIDENT DESCRIPTION
*Report taken at 17:09 on 23-APR-13
Incident Type: FIXED
Incident Cause: EQUIPMENT FAILURE
Affected Area:
The incident was discovered on 23-APR-13 at 15:45 local time.
Affected Medium: SOIL
SUSPECTED RESPONSIBLE PARTY
Organization: ENBRIDGE ENERGY
BEMIBJI, MN
Type of Organization: PRIVATE ENTERPRISE
INCIDENT LOCATION
18060 203TH ST NW County: MARSHALL
City: VIKING State: MN
RELEASED MATERIAL(S)
CHRIS Code: OIL Official Material Name: OIL: CRUDE
Qty Released: 600 GALLON(S)
DESCRIPTION OF INCIDENT
THE CALLER REPORTED THAT A LEAK ON A PRESSURE TRANSMITTER RESULTED IN A RELEASE OF CRUDE OIL.
Package: N/A
Building ID:
Type of Fixed Object: OTHER
Power Generating Facility: NO
Generating Capacity:
Type of Fuel:
NPDES:
NPDES Compliance: UNKNOWN
Fire Involved: NO Fire Extinguished: UNKNOWN
INJURIES: NO Hospitalized: Empl/Crew: Passenger:
FATALITIES: NO Empl/Crew: Passenger: Occupant:
EVACUATIONS: NO Who Evacuated: Radius/Area:
Damages: NO
Length of Direction of
Closure Type Description of Closure Closure Closure
Major Artery:
Road: N
Waterway: N
Track: N
Passengers Transferred: NO
Environmental Impact: UNKNOWN
Media Interest: NONE Community Impact due to Material:
REMEDIAL ACTIONS
CLEAN UP UNDERWAY
Release Secured: YES
Release Rate:
Estimated Release Duration:
Weather: CLEAR, ºF
ADDITIONAL AGENCIES NOTIFIED
State/Local:
State/Local On Scene:
State Agency Number:
NOTIFICATIONS BY NRC
ATLANTIC STRIKE TEAM (MAIN OFFICE)
23-APR-13 17:14
CGIS RAO ST. LOUIS (COMMAND CENTER)
DOT CRISIS MANAGEMENT CENTER (MAIN OFFICE)
U.S. EPA V (MAIN OFFICE)
MN BUREAU OF CRIMINAL APPREHENSION (OPERATIONS CENTER)
MN DEPT OF HEALTH (MAIN OFFICE)
MN U.S. ATTORNEY'S OFFICE (MAIN OFFICE)
NATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE COORD CTR (MAIN OFFICE)
NOAA RPTS FOR MN (MAIN OFFICE)
NATIONAL RESPONSE CENTER HQ (AUTOMATIC REPORTS)
DOI/OEPC DENVER (MAIN OFFICE)
USCG DISTRICT 8 (MAIN OFFICE)
*** END INCIDENT REPORT # 1044848 ***
Source: http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/04/24/another-pipeline-leak-enbridge-alberta-clipper-line-67-leaking-tar-sands-bitumen


If it weren't for the 57 bus, Sasha and Richard never would have met. Both were high school students from Oakland, California, one of the most diverse cities in the country, but they inhabited different worlds. Sasha, a white teen, lived in the middle-class foothills and attended a small private school. Richard, a black teen, lived in the crime-plagued flatlands and attended a large public one. Each day, their paths overlapped for eight minutes. But one afternoon on the bus ride home from school, a single reckless act changed everything.


Two well-equipped cross-country skiing centres welcome skiers in Alpe Cimbra, making everything they need available: perfectly prepared tracks, fully equipped hire, experienced, professional and amusing ski instructors.
Alpe di Folgaria Coe cross-country centre in Folgaria (1600 m asl - 35 km of tracks) and Millegrobbe cross-country centre (1400 m asl - 35 km of tracks) in Lavarone/Lusérn. Two centres with a long experience, two main landmarks in Trentino for Nordic skiing lovers, from a competitive point of view too.
•Nordic ski school with qualified staff and long professional experience: individual and group lessons, from basics to race techniques.
Alpe di Folgaria-Coe cross-country skiing centre is part of Trentino Super Nordic Skipass circuit.


text:
NAEA > NEWS > OCTOBER 2020 > ROUTE WIDE CHANGES MADE TO WESTERN LEG OF HS2, PHASE 2B
Further calls to Government to extend Stamp Duty cut
A group of 50 Conservative MPs are calling on the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak to extend the stamp duty cut for properties worth less than £500,000 a further 12 months in a major boost alongside The Telegraph's 'Stamp Out the Duty' campaign. Read More...
New building safety regulators proposed for Wales
The Welsh Government's Building Safety White Paper covers all multi-occupied residential buildings, from houses converted into flats through to high rise apartment blocks. It sets out major reforms to how properties are designed, built, managed, and lived in whilst proposing clear lines of accountability and a stronger regulatory system. Read More...
Support growing for Fire Safety Bill amendments that add protection for leaseholders
In November, the House of Lords passed an amendment to the UK Government's Fire Safety Bill making changes to the current legislation to protect leaseholders from having to pay for historical fire safety remedial work, including the removal of dangerous cladding. Read More...
Route wide changes made to Western Leg of HS2, Phase 2B
The UK Government announced, on 7 October, further updates to the Safeguarding Directions (safeguarded zone) and zoned property schemes that replace all previous versions.
Initial Safeguarding Directions and zoned property schemes were first published in June 2019, designed to protect land identified for major infrastructure projects from conflicting developments.
The new directions issued impose town planning restrictions on property owners, obligations on Local Authorities, and have implications for anyone selling a property and allow affected, eligible property owners to claim full statutory compensation.
Property owners with properties located within the safeguarded area may be able to serve a blight notice and apply for an express purchase to ask the Government to buy their property, before building the railway. If homeowners do not qualify for an express purchase, they can still apply to sell their property with a blight notice, but the UK Government will only buy these properties if they are needed for the construction of HS2.
The entire section of the Western Leg is affected, including off-route works, Preston, and Carlisle. These route changes implicate the allocation of zones in relation to property locations. The Western Leg of HS2 has been divided into 26 community areas, and an online summary outlines the affected areas.
What agents should be advising customers
It is important to have a clear understanding of the planned rail routes and agents should be familiar with the location of new stations and how close the infrastructure will be to new and existing housing developments.
Enquiries submitted by conveyancing solicitors to local authorities, in the form of 'searches' of the local land register, should confirm if a property is located within the adopted safeguarding zone. The Government has made the property scheme maps for HS2 Phase 2b available, showing where the boundaries lie, covering Crewe to Manchester and the West Midlands to Leeds.
For those affected by the HS2 direction safeguarding changes, there are several compensation schemes available. The Government has provided advice for homeowners, to show which property scheme people are eligible for. This specifically depends on the location of their property and which phase of HS2 affects them. The full HS2 Guide to property schemes can be found here.
PROPERTYMARK RESOURCES
NAEA Propertymark members have access to a range of help and guidance to assist them with their day-to-day duties as an agent. Take advantage of your membership by logging into the members' area on the NAEA Propertymark website.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Se7en (1995)
This isn't going to have a happy ending.
—William Somerset
Directed in 1995, David Fincher's Se7en is a film that defies easy categorization. Perhaps too dark to qualify as a golden classic despite having all the right ingredients, neither is it a cult film in the traditional sense, as it is stocked with A-list talent and propped up by a smart script, a memorable score and rich cinematography, and a production value in lockstep with Fincher's vision for the film.
But few would question its merits as a cop drama, which as a genre trails right behind Westerns as films that Americans love to love but rarely support at the box office. Se7en beat those odds and enjoyed wide critical and popular success thanks in large part to a strong word of mouth around the film's many hairpin turns, and one other thing: its title sequence.
The film doesn't open directly with the sequence. It first introduces us to retiring Detective Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and rookie replacement Detective Mills (Brad Pitt) as they also meet for the first time, establishing their combative on-screen chemistry and investing the audience in the evolution of their partnership. This prelude also introduces many of the key themes found in Se7en: hopelessness, apathy, desperation and – lest we wonder why – plenty of violence. By the end, we welcome Somerset's nighttime zen ritual of drowning out the chaos with a metronome on his nightstand, its hypnotic rhythm also asking for our trust and attention.
Instead, it delivers us into an even darker world, which – unlike the random city violence beneath Somerset's window – is obsessive, methodic, and purposeful. Directed by Kyle Cooper while at the newly-formed Los Angeles arm of titling giant R/Greenberg Associates, it's a short story told in fragments and vignettes, following the hands of an unknown man – presumably the antagonist, John Doe – as he makes entries in his diary alongside clippings from books, self-developed photographs, and found images and objects, giving the audience an intimate look into the mind of a serial killer obsessed with religion and, more to the point, attrition.
View 20 images
Process photographs
It's a sequence that has drawn comparisons to the grotesque photography of Joel-Peter Whitkin and the experimental self-aware filmmaking of Stan Brakhage, and its format has been likened to Stephen Frankfurt's title design for Robert Mulligan's 1963 adaptation of the courtroom thriller To Kill a Mockingbird, which also features close-up photography of personal items to describe the psyche of one of the film's key players. But it is more likely a convergence of unique circumstances and artistic vision that gave the Se7en titles their own distinct cadence, blending Fincher's treatment of the film itself with Cooper's visual interpretation of its narrative.
And what ultimately distinguishes Se7en is its delivery, piecing together bits of leader and other film artifacts with ephemeral imagery and type etched right into the emulsion, all sewn together by Angus Wall's staccato edit and Coil/Danny Hide's nail-on-chalkboard remix of Trent Reznor's industrial hit "Closer." It's an effortless presentation which – much like the killer's diary featured within – wears its construction proudly on its sleeve.
Type + photograph comps
Fincher had originally considered director Mark Romanek for the title sequence, who had previously worked with Reznor on the music video for "Closer," and with whom he shared similar aesthetic sensibilities. But Cooper felt an immediate connection with the material and pitched Fincher on an evolution of a technique he had used in several past title sequences. "I had done a lot of tabletop shoots – I had just shot money burning for Dead Presidents, and in fact, cutting "God" out of the dollar bill, I thought of that when I was looking at the dollar bill with the word "God" burning in it, and I was thinking about what John Doe might do."
"When I was a kid and I would watch horror movies," reflects Cooper, "the monster didn't come out until the third act. I was lucky to watch [Se7en] early on, and I remember thinking that after I saw it, I wanted to see the killer earlier on… to somehow introduce the killer in the titles. I asked if I could look at all the props and anything that Fincher might have to look at, and there were a couple of prop notebooks that had excessive writing in them, and I thought it would be good to do a tabletop shoot with them and have it be about their preparation, as though it was John Doe's job to prepare them."
The notebooks themselves were created by designers Clive Piercy and John Sabel, who filled the pages with large blocks of text, broken only by the occasional macabre photograph or ambiguous artifact taped in place. "There was a whole shelf full of books, and probably six of them had content inside," says Cooper, "and maybe two of them had a number of pages with excessive writing in them, with words like 'lust' and 'greed' – you know, John Doe's notes – and so we used some of that production artwork, and some of them we just expounded on and made our own."
"The Notebooks" featurette, with commentary by designers Clive Piercy and John Sabel
(From the 2010 Blu-ray)
Fincher had originally envisioned the sequence as a train ride from Somerset's suburban would-be retirement home back into the city, simultaneously creating a connection and a distance between the two locations. But when the suburban location was cut from the film, the focus instead turned to John Doe and his notebooks. "Once we talked about the idea of shooting his books, then I would meet with Fincher and he would come up with ideas of what to shoot, and I would come up with shots and we'd compare notes and start making storyboards."
Cooper and his team at R/GA, including graphic designer Jenny Shainin, assembled a glorified slideshow of sorts, cutting photographs together with temporary title cards to convey the mood of the sequence. "We photographed books and shadows and mapped it all out with stills to get an idea of what it would look like when you see through the pages and you see the shadows behind the page and the backlight."
This early sequence was further developed through storyboards by artist Wayne Coe, which were referenced during the live action shoot.
Storyboard art by Wayne Coe
The typography itself – which would likely break several guild legibility rules in modern times – was hand-etched into black-surface scratchboard and manipulated during the film transfer process to further smear and jitter it. This transfer was then cut up and reassembled during post production to add a final layer of temporal distress.
"Fincher and I decided to use hand-drawn [type] mixed with Helvetica, and he was very excited by it," says Cooper. "He knew that he wanted it to be drawn by hand, because it was from the mind of the killer, and I was taking that further, wanting it to be like the killer did the film opticals himself."
This sentiment was not only reflected in the content of the sequence, but also in its assembly. Even though digital editing and compositing were already commonplace in Hollywood and especially in post-production, Cooper and his team opted to assemble the majority of the sequence by hand, giving it an analog warmth and randomness which may have otherwise been cheapened by digital effects.
"People think that there's computer graphics in there, but having to deliver the thing as a traditional film optical and trying to encourage the guy working the optical printer to not throw away things that are accidents that we actually wanted in there, with fish hooks and razor blades going through the roll-up machine – it was just an interesting time," reflects Cooper. "You can plan for everything and say we're going to do something that looks effortless, but that's not really realistic – it takes on a life of its own."
Early storyboard edit, with commentary by title designer Kyle Cooper
It is ironic, then, that the Se7en titles are often credited as the beginning of a new renaissance in title design defined in large part by – or at least enabled by – pixels and digits. And even more so given that its impact on the title industry is still felt almost two decades on, both as a legacy and in the countless knock-offs it has inspired over the years, having been co-opted almost wholesale by the horror genre as a house style.
In 2011, IFC ranked Se7en as the third greatest title sequence of all time, behind Richard Lester's A Hard Day's Night and Saul Bass' Vertigo; the New York Times credited it as "…one of the most important design innovations of the 1990s." But perhaps John Doe describes it best in his own words:
"Wanting people to listen, you can't just tap them on the shoulder anymore. You have to hit them with a sledgehammer, and then you'll notice you've got their strict attention."
SUPPLEMENTAL: End credit crawl
Digital Visual Efects and Main Title Sequence by: R/Greenberg Associates West, Inc.
(A division of R/GA Digital Studios)
Main and End Titles Designed and Executed by: Kyle Cooper
(Designed in collaboration with David Fincher and Jenny Shainin)
Director of Photography: Harris Savides
Director of Photography, Graphics: Findley Bunting
Editor: Angus Wall
Storyboard Art: Wayne Coe
Visual Effects and Main Title Producers: Peter Frankfurt, Steven T Puri
Visual Effects Supervisior: Greg Kimble
Visual Effects Coordinator: Tim Thompson
Main Title Producer: Rebecca Ramsey, RGA/LA
Main Title Opticals by: Pacific Title
"Closer (Coil/Danny Hide remix)"
by Trent Reznor
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David Fincher: A Film Title Retrospective
The Island of Dr. Moreau
R/Greenberg Associates: A Film Title Retrospective
Kyle Cooper
Angus Wall
R/Greenberg Associates (R/GA)
1990s, end crawl, experimental, graphic, hand drawn, live action, main title, mixed-media, optical, tabletop photography
Lola Landekic
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text:
Ein Aasjäger ist in der Jägersprache jemand, der die Jagd unwaidmännisch oder sogar gesetzwidrig betreibt und sich dementsprechend nicht an das Jagdrecht, die Konventionen der Waidgerechtigkeit bzw. des Tierschutzes hält. Zu den Aasjägern zählt man insbesondere diejenigen, die alles ohne Unterschied jagen und zu töten versuchen, was ihnen vor die Flinte kommt, etwa auch tragende Muttertiere.

Darüber hinaus werden auch diejenigen zu den Aasjägern gezählt, die das Wild leichtsinnig und mit unzureichender Munition oder Waffen beschießen, dabei nicht tödlich treffen und anschließend keine Nachsuche durchführen, so dass das Tier erst nach längerer Zeit verendet und dann zu Aas wird.

Literatur
 Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon, Band 1. Leipzig 1905
 Ilse Haseder, Gerhard Stinglwagner: Knaurs Großes Jagdlexikon, Augsburg 2000, Stichwort: Aasjägerei, ISBN 3-8289-1579-5

Siehe auch
 Aas

Einzelnachweise

Weblink

Jägersprache

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


H-Town Chow Down: Ace Chinese Restaurant in The Woodlands is no more; it was gutted and transformed into a new restaurant, The Republic Grille. The H-Town Chow Down crew paid a visit to the Texas cuisine restaurant and thoroughly enjoyed its offerings, especially the Republic Burger and chicken fried steak, in which they deemed as the best CFC in The Woodlands.
Hank On Food: This week, Hank checked out the newest BB's Cafe location on Westheimer and tried a multitude of items, including the bacon-wrapped Loaded Pollo Bullets stuffed with cream cheese and jalapenos, the Tex-Cajun Virgin (French fries covered in queso, a spicy roux gravy and roast beef, Maw Maw's Grillades and Grits, BB's Midnight Masterpiece (a Po'Boy sandwich with roast beef) and Maw Maw's Bread Pudding, all of which received an A+ grade.
Zagat Houston: Summer is almost here and Zagat Houston has a food bucket list for you. Dive into this list of 30 things you need to eat over the next few months, including Fat Cat Creamery's Summer Sundae with pineapple upside down cake, coconut sorbet and Dreamsicle ice cream covered in a caramelized white chocolate shell. Next month you'll be able to try the Squash Blossom Quesadilla from Hugo's -- blue corn tortillas filled with squash blossoms, corn and Chihuahua cheese.
Adventures in a (New)ish City: After Kim took photographs for a friend's baby gender reveal, they both headed to Aka Sushi House where they found the cooked offerings to be quite delicious. The Dynamite Roll with baked assorted fish, spicy mayo, scallion and a crunchy topping was Kim's favorite, however she still enjoyed the Tiger Eye Roll with smoked salmon, cream cheese, jalapeno, masago and soy paper.
CultureMap Houston: Eric Sandler spoke with several Houston sommeliers about the wines you should be drinking this summer. Adele Corrigan of 13 Celsius Wine Bar says she prefers bubbly wines in the summer, such as a Charles Bove sparkling cabernet franc/gamay rosé. David Keck of Camerata at Paulie's prefers a Riesling during the warmer months, and Sean Beck of Hugo's, Backstreet Cafe and Caracol suggests Juan Gil Monastrell, a red wine that pairs perfectly with barbecue.
Eat-More-Burgers: Russell Weill of Eat-More-Burgers writes about the Red Adair burger at The Refinery Burgers & Whiskey on West Dallas. This spicy specialty bacon cheeseburger features jalapeno bacon, jalapenos and cheddar cheese on a pretzel bun. You're drooling, aren't you?


text:
DIISOPROPYL SUCCINATE
SYNONYMS Butanedioic acid, bis(1-methylethyl) ester;
Succinato de diisopropilo; Succinate de diisopropyle; Succinic Acid Diisopropyl Ester;
PHYSICAL STATE Clear liquid
BOILING POINT 228 C
SOLUBILITY IN WATER 6 g/l
Succinic Acid (also called Butanedioic Acid) is a dicarboxylic acid with four carbon atoms, occurring naturally plant and animal tissues and that plays a significant role in intermediary metabolism (Krebs cycle). It is a colourless crystalline solid with a melting point of 185-187º C, soluble in water, slightly dissolved in ethanol, ether, acetone and glycerine, but not dissolved in benzene, carbon sulfide, carbon tetrachloride and oil ether. The common method of synthesis of succinic acid is the catalytic hydrogenation of maleic acid or its anhydride. Succinic acid has uses in certain drug compounds, in agricultural and food production, and in perfume esters manufacturing.
There are almost infinite esters obtained from thousands of potential starting materials. Esters are formed by removal of water from an acid and an alcohol, e.g., carboxylic acid esters, phosphoric acid esters, and sulfonic acid esters. Carboxylic acid esters are used as in a variety of direct and indirect applications. Lower chain esters are used as flavouring base materials, plasticizers, solvent carriers and coupling agents. Higher chain compounds are used as components in metalworking fluids, surfactants, lubricants, detergents, oiling agents, emulsifiers, wetting agents textile treatments and emollients, They are also used as intermediates for the manufacture of a variety of target compounds. The almost infinite esters provide a wide range of viscosity, specific gravity, vapor pressure, boiling point, and other physical and chemical properties for the proper application selections.
Clear liquid
0.1 max (mg KOH/g)
ORGANIC IMPURITY
15 max (Hazen)
PACKING 200kgs in Drum
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF DICARBOXYLIC ACID
Dicarboxylic acid is a compound containing two carboxylic acid, -COOH, groups. Straight chain examples are shown in table. The general formula is HOOC(CH2)nCOOH, where oxalic acid's n is 0, n=1 for malonic acid, n=2 for succinic acid, n=3 for glutaric acid, and etc. In substitutive nomenclature, their names are formed by adding -dioic' as a suffix to the name of the parent compound. They can yield two kinds of salts, as they contain two carboxyl groups in its molecules. The range of carbon chain lengths is from 2, but the longer than C 24 is very rare. The term long chain refers to C 12 up to C 24 commonly. Carboxylic acids have industrial application directly or indirectly through acid halides, esters, salts, and anhydride forms, polymerization, and etc. Dicarboxylic acids can yield two kinds of salts or esters, as they contain two carboxyl groups in one molecule. It is useful in a variety of industrial applications include;
Plasticizer for polymers
Biodegradable solvents and lubricants
Epoxy curing agent
Adhesive and powder coating
Perfumery and pharmaceutical
Structure & Length
Straight C2
Oxalic Acid (Ethanedioic Acid)
HOOCCOOH
Malonic Acid (Propanedioic Acid)
HOOCCH2COOH
Succinic Acid (Butanedioic Acid)
HOOC(CH2)2COOH
Glutaric Acid (Pentanedioic Acid)
Adipic Acid (Hexanedioic Acid)
Pimelic Acid (Heptanedioic Acid)
Suberic Acid (Octanedioic Acid)
Azelaic Acid (Nonanedioic Acid)
Straight C10
Sebacic Acid (Decanedioic Acid)


Warmer weather and lighter evenings make spring the perfect time of year to enjoy a walk. If you're longing to breathe fresh air and feel the sun on your skin, Bournemouth and the surrounding area is blessed with some of the most jaw-dropping scenery in the country. From beach treks to gardens, here are 5 of the best walks to try.
Image by Lets Go Out Bournemouth and Poole Fisherman's Walk stretches between Southbourne and Boscombe. You can get there easily via the M2 bus or by car along Southbourne Overcliff Drive, which offers superb sea views and a decent amount of on street parking. Quieter than the often-crowded beach around Boscombe pier, Fisherman's Walk is a local favourite. It has a walkway, beach huts, safe swimming and a Blue Flag quality sandy beach that is perfect for families. The Fisherman's Walk lift provides easy access to a nearby cliff and stunning views of Poole Harbour and the Isle of Wight. For the more adventurous, Fisherman's Walk resides between two glorious nature reserves, Hengistbury Head and Boscombe and Southbourne Overcliff.
Image by Roman Hobler Over the last two centuries approximately 85% of Dorset's heathland has been lost. As the largest expanse of unspoiled lowland left, Godlingston Heath is the closest thing you'll see to the beautiful landscapes described in the novels of Thomas Hardy. A diverse range of protected wildlife lives among the heather, gorse and bracken, including all six types of lizard native to the British Isles. Managed by the National Trust, the heath walk also boasts barbecue spots and breath-taking views across to Sandbanks and Bournemouth. From Bournemouth, Godlingston Heath is a near seven-mile drive along Ferry Road. You can also reach it by taking the number 50 bus from Bournemouth Station, getting off at Goathorn Farm and walking the rest of the way by following National Trust signs.
Image by Stephanie King Old Harry Rocks is one of the most recognisable landmarks on the Dorset coast. The chalk rocks used to be part of a long stretch of coast between Purbeck and the Isle of Wight. Now, eroded by the sea, they mark the most easterly point of the Jurassic Coast, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The walk up to the rocks begins and ends at the Bankes Arms, near the South Beach car park. The circular route is an easy stroll that takes you along the clifftop and through the chalk grassland of the surrounding area. At the rocks, you will be rewarded with spectacular views across Poole harbour, back to Bournemouth and the Isle of Wight. Like Godlingston Heath, Old Harry Rocks is a short drive from Bournemouth, along Ferry Road.
Image by Jeremy Tarling Chine is a native Dorset word that refers to steep valleys carved by running water over thousands of years. Bournemouth has several chines that have been converted into wonderful gardens. Boscombe Chine Gardens is a beautifully restored Victorian garden, with a huge array of award-winning flowerbeds coming into full bloom, mini golf and a tree trail that is home to a scurry of squirrels. Alum Chine is the largest of Bournemouth's chines. It has a gorgeous tropical garden displaying delightfully exotic plants and flowers. Three bridges also span the width of the chine, offering a majestic bird's eye view of the fantastic foliage and botanical brilliance below. Bournemouth Lower Gardens Image by Henry Burrows Bournemouth's Lower Garden is a five-minute walk from the town centre. Retaining all its traditional Grade II listed Victorian charm, this award-winning garden is renowned for its incredible floral displays. Throughout the warmer months, the garden hosts frequent special events, including live music in the fabulous Pine Walk Bandstand. The resident Bournemouth Balloon, which soars to 150 feet, provides awe-inspiring views of the city and beyond. As part of a large town park split into three areas, you can choose to move through Lower Gardens and into the Central and Upper Gardens. All three gardens have won the prestigious Green Flag Award every year since 1999, and offer spectacular surroundings for enjoying a spring stroll in the sunshine.
If you want to make your springtime stay in Bournemouth longer, we have a handful of magnificent hotels in excellent locations to choose from. Hallmark Hotel Bournemouth Carlton has dramatic seafront views, Hallmark Hotel Bournemouth West Cliff is located within walking distance of several sandy beaches and the town centre, while Hallmark Hotel Bournemouth East Cliff enjoys an impressive cliff top view, plus beaches and the town centre within walking distance. All our hotels include comfortable beds for a good night's sleep, free access to super-fast Wi-Fi, 24-hour room service, a delicious breakfast buffet and many other facilities. Book now to avoid missing out on Hallmark Hotels' special offers.


Camfrog 6.1 Build 146 comes with the following changes. IM History and the IM Catcher are now available for free Camfrog users. We have fixed a bug that caused IM history to disappear for some users. Right click a remote video window and choose "Close all remote video windows but this one". Users can now clear their nickname login list. Numerous bug fixes and improvements.


Both the LPN Men's and Women's leagues will hold their annual kick-off events this week, with play beginning next week.
The Men's Stag will be Wednesday, May 1. Cocktails and munchies begin at 5:30 p.m. with a brief program and raffle drawing scheduled around 7 p.m. Find more Men's League details at our website.
The Women's League tee-off dinner will be Thursday, May 2, beginning at 5:30 p.m. The evening will include dinner, program, gifts, prizes and details about the 2013 league. Find more information on the Women's League at our website.
A few slots remain for the "Social Canvas To Go" painting event tomorrow. It begins at 6 p.m. in the LPN banquet room, but participants should arrive early to check in.
An artist guides participants through replicating the night's featured painting. Food and drink can be purchased from The Links throughout the event. Specials will include $1 off all appetizers and flat bread pizzas, $1.50 draw beer, $2.50 well drinks and $3 glasses of house wine.
Cost is $35, which covers canvases, paints, brushes, easels and aprons. Credit card information is collected to hold the reservation, with the $35 fee paid at check-in. Reservations must be made no later than April 29 by calling 515-216-1037, or online.
Lake Panorama National's annual Mother's Day brunch will be Sunday, May 12. Chef Mike Harris will prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner entrees, along with sweet desserts. Brunch will be served from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Because of the brunch, the Links will be closed for regular service. Make your reservations today by calling 641-755-2080.
There are two men's leagues at Panorama West. League members must either purchase an annual Panorama West membership, or pay the $16 daily green fee. Both leagues still are accepting players, and dues are $20.
The Thursday morning league began play April 25. Members tee off between 7 and 8:30 a.m. Dues cover 18 weeks of regular play with weekly cash prizes and individual awards at the end of the season, plus a final tournament and luncheon Sept. 5. For more information, contact Virgil Hoehne at 641-757-0962 or 2grandkids@live.com.
The Tuesday evening men's league will begin May 7 and run through Aug. 27. Weekly and end-of-year prizes are awarded. The last Tuesday of each month is a best-ball team format, playing from the par-4 tee boxes. For more information, contact Kevin Richey at 641-757-0487 or richeyk1@yahoo.com; or Trent Crawmer at 515-240-1203 or trentcrawmer@gmail.com.
The Panorama West women's league held a kick-off luncheon April 24 at the Lake Panorama National Conference Center. Plans for the season were shared and door prizes awarded. League members must either purchase an annual Panorama West membership, or pay the $16 daily green fee. Dues are $25. Weekly and end-of-year prizes are awarded.
Play begins May 7 with a two-person best-ball event. Sign-in begins at 8:30 a.m. with rolls and coffee available. John Dinnebier, LPN general manager and director of golf, will provide a group golf clinic at 9 a.m., followed by a shotgun start at 9:30 a.m.
Regular play gets underway May 14 and continues each Tuesday through Sept. 10. For more information, contact Janet Luing at 641-755-3347 or jdluing@netins.net.


If you are concerned about vehicle, pedestrian and bicycle safety in and around Port Ludlow and wish to express your views, you are cordially invited to attend public forums sponsored by the Port Ludlow Village Council (PLVC).
Officials from Jefferson County Public Works and the Sheriff's Department will be in attendance.
Our mission is to work in concert with the County to find affordable and effective solutions to speeding issues in Port Ludlow without interfering with the legal flow of traffic through our community.
Our goal is to gather the inputs of Port Ludlow residents (drivers, walkers/hikers and bicyclists) and develop a community-wide proposal that will be submitted to Jefferson County Public Works for implementation.
Because North Bay and South Bay roadway conditions and safety issues vary, we are hosting two forums and will incorporate the needs of each area into our proposal to the County. North Bay residents are invited to participate in the forum at the Beach Club. South Bay residents will meet at the Bay Club.
Not able to attend the forum in your area? Please feel free to join us at the other location. All experiences, ideas and opinions are welcome.
Hosted by PLVC ad hoc ROADWAY SAFETY COMMITTEE.
If you are not able to attend either forum, please email your comments to Steve Frenzl at sjfrenzl@gmail.com.


Honey Gentry - Heaven California - Duration: 4 minutes, 19 seconds.
LETS MAKE A MOVIE 📼 HANEL KINGSON & HONEY GENTRY 📼 - Duration: 3 minutes, 20 seconds.
Honey Gentry 👼 Angel, Honey 👼 - Duration: 2 minutes, 55 seconds.
Honey Gentry - Bleed Honey - Duration: 4 minutes, 1 second.
Honey Gentry 🌸 Dreams 🌻 Fleetwood Mac Cover 🌸 Goddess of Spring 🌻 - Duration: 4 minutes, 8 seconds.
honey gentry ☆ house of the rising sun ☆ joan baez cover - Duration: 2 minutes, 41 seconds.
honey gentry ☆ bleed, honey ☆ acoustic - Duration: 3 minutes, 8 seconds.
Honey Gentry - Moonbaby Magic ♡ - Duration: 4 minutes, 10 seconds.
honey gentry ♡ heaven, california ♡ acoustic video♡ - Duration: 3 minutes, 49 seconds.
honey gentry ☆ go with the flow ☆ queens of the stone age cover - Duration: 4 minutes, 3 seconds.
☆ honey gentry ☆ baby forever ☆ acoustic version - Duration: 3 minutes, 36 seconds.
☆ honey gentry ☆ angel, honey ☆ (acoustic version) - Duration: 2 minutes, 32 seconds.
✨honey gentry 💗aphrodite ✨ - Duration: 3 minutes, 9 seconds.
Honey Gentry | Born to Die | Lana Del Rey Cover - Duration: 3 minutes, 9 seconds.
🌞 Heaven California 🌞 Honey Gentry 🌞 Official Video 🌞 - Duration: 4 minutes, 19 seconds.
Honey Gentry 🌼 Wicked Game 🌼 Chris Isaak cover 🌼 - Duration: 5 minutes, 37 seconds.
Honey Gentry | Golden Heart | Acoustic - Duration: 3 minutes, 22 seconds.
🌹 honey gentry 🌹 desire 🌹 - Duration: 3 minutes, 34 seconds.
☆ honey gentry ☆ honeydew ☆ (acoustic version) - Duration: 2 minutes, 37 seconds.
HONEY GENTRY 💖BLEED HONEY 💖LIVE AT THE SEBRIGHT ARMS 17 FEB 2019 💖 - Duration: 4 minutes, 46 seconds.
ANGEL HONEY 💖 HONEY GENTRY 💖LIVE AT THE SEBRIGHT ARMS - Duration: 3 minutes, 17 seconds.
DREAMLOVER 💖 HONEY GENTRY 💖LIVE AT THE SEBRIGHT ARMS - Duration: 6 minutes, 5 seconds.
HONEY GENTRY 💖HEAVEN CALIFORNIA 💖LIVE AT THE SEBRIGHT ARMS 17 FEB 2019 💖 - Duration: 5 minutes, 18 seconds.
✨in the light ✨honey gentry ✨ - Duration: 2 minutes.
honey gentry❣honeydew❣ - Duration: 2 minutes, 55 seconds.
Fire and Ice (2018)❄ Honey Gentry - Duration: 2 minutes, 29 seconds.
💕 Smile (2015 demo) 💕 - Duration: 4 minutes, 37 seconds.
Honey Gentry 💖Hallelujah 💖 - Duration: 4 minutes, 40 seconds.


As part of any assignment at LDP Luckmans we pride ourselves on being able to provide the most current and up-to-date advice. Given the challenge of constantly changing tax legislation correct advice on the interpretation of tax law is paramount.
Compliance with the requirements laid down by HM Revenue & Customs is dealt with by our highly trained staff and using the most up-to-date taxation software, we are able to offer the most comprehensive service.
Our skill is in understanding the interaction of all the taxes within the framework of the commercial advice we provide.
HMRC is more determined than ever to increase the tax yields from tax payers. They are continuing to extend their compliance work and Aspect enquiries, reviews and inspections have become much more common. We are able to offer our clients Premier Protection from CCH. This cover protects against the financial burden of a tax investigation, enquiry, dispute, VAT review and Employer Compliance matters such as PAYE, NIC and P11D. In addition you will have access to the Business Support Helpline on vital business issues relating to Employment and Personnel, Health and Safety and Commercial Legal. If you would like more information regarding CCH cover please contact us.


A Standard Missile-2 (SM-2) failed to leave the MK. 41 vertical launch system after the rocket booster burned out while the missile was still inside its canister during a live-firing drill conducted by German air defense frigate FGS Sachsen.
Nobody was hurt during the accident, the German Navy said adding that two sailors on the frigate were "stressverletzt" – which means the sailors likely experienced an acute stress reaction. Both have recovered and are ready to return to duty.
The SM-2 failure occurred on Thursday, June 21, off the coast of Norway. The F124 frigate FGS Sachsen was in a Norwegian exercise area together with ASW frigate FGS Lübeck when the accident took place.
"We stood in front of a glaring and glowing hot wall of fire," Frigate Captain Thomas Hacken, the task group commander said.
The German Navy said the crew's quick reaction brought the situation under control. The frigate's water sprinkler system also immediately activated to extinguish the fire.
There had been no indication of a potential technical defect on the starter system, the navy further explained, adding that another SM-2 had been successfully launched shortly before the accident. The rocket had also been inspected prior to the launch and was assessed to be in a perfect technical condition.
Both frigates pulled into the Norwegian port of Harstad in the morning hours of June 22 where FGS Sachsen sailors will evaluate the damage, try to determine the causes of the failure and identify necessary repairs.
Posted on June 25, 2018 with tags FGS Sachsen, German Navy, SM-2.


text:
Howard Frank Mosher
Points North
Gods kingdom
The Great Northern Express (2012)
Walking to Gatlinburg (2010)
On Kingdom Mountain (2007)
Waiting for Teddy Williams (2004)
The True Account (2003)
The Fall of the Year (1999)
North Country (1997)
Northern Borders (1994)
A Stranger in the Kingdom (1989)
Marie Blythe (1983)
Where the Rivers Flow North (1978)
Disappearances (1977)
Northern Borders
Disappearances
A Stranger in the Kingdom
Where the Rivers Flow North
Please support your local independent bookstores. They are the heart and soul of every community where they are located, and they are keeping good readers, good writers, and good books alive and well.
The Galaxy Bookshop
"Superior work, rich in texture and character…Mosher is a writer of power and originality." – Wall Street Journal
"Mosher writes stories, almost folk tales at times, built out of lost and forgotten history, rooted in a strong sense of place, inhabited with colorful characters. His terrain may be specific, but his themes are universal." - USA Today
Viking, 1978; paperback Hardscrabble Books, 2004
The stories of Where the Rivers Flow North are "superior work, rich in texture and character," says the Wall Street Journal; "the novella is brilliantly done." That novella, the title story of the tcollection, was also made into a feature film starring Rip Torn and Michael J. Fox.
These six stories, available again in this new edition, continue Mosher's career-long exploration of Kingdom Country, Vermont. "Within the borders of his fictional kingdom," the Providence Journal noted, "Mosher has created mountains and rivers, timber forests and crossroads villages, history and language. And he has people the landscape with some of the truest, most memorable characters in contemporary literature."
"Mosher is a remarkably good observer of nature as well as a born storyteller." - Boston Herald
"Mosher has a fine knack for evoking natural beauty--an otter sliding off an icy log, a loon whooping over a dark lake--and he has a convincing sense of adventure." - Los Angeles Times
With each book, Mosher fleshes out more of his literary turf, a frontier brimming with men and women who follow their own rules." - Boston Globe
Copyright © 2008-2015 Howard Frank Mosher
Web Design: Green Mountain Designs


Although being in tech is fun and rewarding for many people, it doesn't stop bad days at work from happening and sometimes we all just need to take a moment to laugh. For those who need some cheering up or who are just in search of a good laugh, here are some funny tech videos that are sure to have you laughing hysterically. We hope you enjoy these as much as we did and cry a few tears of laughter!


text:
import React from 'react'
import { Breadcrumb } from 'semantic-ui-react'

const BreadcrumbExampleLargeSize = () => (
  <Breadcrumb size='large'>
    <Breadcrumb.Section link>Home</Breadcrumb.Section>
    <Breadcrumb.Divider icon='right chevron' />
    <Breadcrumb.Section link>Registration</Breadcrumb.Section>
    <Breadcrumb.Divider icon='right chevron' />
    <Breadcrumb.Section active>Personal Information</Breadcrumb.Section>
  </Breadcrumb>
)

export default BreadcrumbExampleLargeSize

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub