Okay… this took me by surprise…
Daily Archives: May 11, 2011
Absolutely amazing animal pictures Reply
Absolutely breathtaking photography….
Humorous quotes about Rev Camping’s upcoming Judgement Day aka The Rapture 1
Close-up underwater footage of Fukushima reactor spent fuel pool in debris Reply
TEPCO released footage for the first time on Wednesday of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant Unit 3 reactor’s spent fuel pool. The fuel rods, covered in debris from the March explosions, weren’t visible in the footage but officials believe they are largely undamaged. In an operation filmed by a robot camera, 40 milliliters of water was collected from the spent fuel pool. The water is contaminated with high levels of radioactive material which needs further analysis for evaluation.
Toxic Justice: 20,000 in India killed from worst industrial accident in history – those responsible go unpunished ruled the courts 1
Seven Indian officials responsible for the worst technological disaster in history, had been released on bail after a court refused to give them stronger punishments. They were found guilty of a huge gas leak in 1984 at a U.S. owned plant (Union Carbide India Ltd), which resulted in the deaths of up to 20 thousand people. They never did any jail time, and were only fined $2,000.
Following a public outcry, the Central Bureau of Investigation filed the curative petitions for a direction to frame charges against Mr. Mahindra and others for culpable homicide not amounting to murder that would attract a maximum imprisonment of 10 years. The court just now rejected these petitions stating that it is too far past the time of the event.
The Gas Leak….
During the night of December 2-3, 1984, a storage tank containing methyl isocyanate (MIC) at the Union Carbide pesticide plant leaked gas into the densely populated city of Bhopal, India. It was one of the worst industrial accidents in history.
Union Carbide India, Ltd. built a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India in the late 1970s in an effort to produce pesticides locally to help increase production on local farms. However, sales of pesticide didn’t materialize in the numbers hoped for and the plant was soon losing money. In 1979, the factory began to produce large amounts of the highly toxic methyl isocyanate (MIC), because it was a cheaper way to make the pesticide carbaryl. To also cut costs, training and maintenance in the factory were drastically cut back. Workers in the factory complained about the dangerous conditions and warned of possible disasters, but management did not take any action.
On the night of December 2-3, 1984, something began to go wrong in storage tank E610 which contained 40 tons of MIC. Water leaked into the tank which caused the MIC to heat up. Some sources say that water leaked into the tank during routine cleaning of a pipe but that the safety valves inside the pipe were faulty. The Union Carbide company claims that a saboteur placed the water inside the tank, although there has never been proof of this. It is also considered possible that once the tank began to overheat, workers threw water on the tank, not realizing they were adding to the problem
By 12:15 a.m. on the morning of December 3, 1984, MIC fumes were leaking out of the storage tank. Although there should have been six safety features that would have either prevented the leak or contained it, all six did not work properly that night. It is estimated that 27 tons of MIC gas escaped out of the container and spread across the densely populated city of Bhopal, India, which had a population of approximately 900,000 people. Although a warning siren was turned on, it was quickly turned off again so as to not cause panic.
Most residents of Bhopal were sleeping when the gas began to leak. Many woke up only because they heard their children coughing or found themselves choking on the fumes. As people jumped up from their beds, they felt their eyes and throat burning. Some choked on their own bile. Others fell to the ground in contortions of pain.
People ran and ran, but they did not know in which direction to go. Families were split up in the confusion. Many people fell to the ground unconscious and were then trampled upon.
Estimates of the death toll vary greatly. Most sources say at least 3,000 people died from immediate exposure to the gas, while higher estimates go up to 8,000. In the two decades following the night of the disaster, approximately 20,000 additional people have died from the damage they received from the gas.
Another 120,000 people live daily with the effects from the gas, including blindness, extreme shortness of breath, cancers, birth deformities, and early onset of menopause. Chemicals from the pesticide plant and from the leak have infiltrated the water system and the soil near the old factory and thus continue to cause poisoning in the people who live near it.
Just three days after the disaster, the chairman of Union Carbide, Warren Anderson, was arrested. When he was released on bail, he fled the country. Although his whereabouts were unknown for many years, recently he was found living in the Hamptons in New York. Extradition procedures have not started because of political issues. Anderson continues to be wanted in India for culpable homicide for his role in the Bhopal disaster.
One of the worst parts of this tragedy is actually what has happened in the years following that fateful night in 1984. Although Union Carbide has paid some restitution to the victims, the company claims they are not liable for any damages because they blame a saboteur for the disaster and claim that the factory was in good working order before the gas leak. The victims of the Bhopal gas leak have received very little money. Many of the victims continue to live in ill health and are unable to work.
Video story of man impaled by pipe through mouth and survived 1
Linn that he had driven his car off the pavement near Bonanza Road and Christy Lane and hit a chain-link fence in a homeowner’s yard. A pole fastened atop the fence broke through the windshield, went through Linn just below the right side of his nose and ripped out teeth before slamming through the back window.
Impaled by pole through mouth – Man survives an…, posted with vodpod
Man survives being impaled by 2″ diameter pipe through mouth and head (photo of xray) Reply
Click here to see the video just posted from MSNBC
“We’re bringing in a patient with a foreign object impaled in his mouth,” radioed the paramedic to Dr Jay Coates in the UNLV Medical Center.
What wasn’t said was that the foreign object was a 2-inch diameter metal pole that had been driven through the man’s mouth and out through his neck.
“What the (expletive) am I going to do with this?” Coates remembered saying as he looked at the man sitting before him with 4 to 6 inches of pole sticking out of his mouth and neck. “I had to form a game plan fast.”
Emergency rescue personnel later would tell Linn that he had driven his car off the pavement near Bonanza Road and Christy Lane and hit a chain-link fence in a homeowner’s yard. A pole fastened atop the fence broke through the windshield, went through Linn just below the right side of his nose and ripped out teeth before slamming through the back window.
“All I remember is going to bed after a dinner and then waking up in a hospital,” he said in a phone interview from his Cedar City, Utah, home. “After seeing the pictures of the pole through my mouth and head that they took at the hospital, I’m glad I don’t remember. It really upsets my wife to see those pictures.”
He now theorizes that he woke up hungry late at night and drove to get a hamburger.
“I must have fallen asleep at the wheel,” he said.
Soon after Linn arrived at UMC, Coates had an X-ray done. It showed that the pole had missed Linn’s spine. He called in Moxley and Donahoe to help with the case.
Before Coates cut Linn open to examine just what internal damage had been done, he had do a tracheostomy: create a hole in the front of Linn’s neck and into his windpipe.
Without the tracheostomy, there was no way that a breathing tube could be put into his mouth for an exploratory operation under general anesthesia.
“That metal pole was blocking everything,” Coates said.
The tracheostomy was done under local anesthesia.
“I don’t remember him complaining or moaning in pain at all that night,” Coates said. “The body really has a way of protecting us.”
After Coates was assured the tracheostomy allowed Linn to breathe under general anesthesia, he put him out and then made an incision behind his right ear down to the base of his neck.
To his surprise, neither he nor Donahoe found the jugular vein or carotid artery visibly affected by the trauma.
“I couldn’t see all of the artery, though, so I was really afraid it might break loose when we pulled it out through the mouth,” he said.
It was Moxley’s job to pull the pipe out.
Before he began to pull, the back of the pipe behind Linn’s head had to be recut.
“There were some really sharp edges from where the rescue workers cut it to get him out of the car,” Moxley said. “We were afraid that when we pulled the pipe through his head, it would cut something.”
Just before Moxley began to pull on the pipe, Coates remembered that the team looked at one another and the tension level rose. Blood soon could be spewing from Linn’s head.
But nothing really happened as Moxley extricated the pipe. The artery and jugular had been pushed aside and compressed.
“In short, all of the bad things that could have happened, didn’t,” Moxley said.
If the pole had gone in just a fraction of inch differently, Linn would have died.
“People who are in accidents like this go to the morgue, not the emergency room,” Moxley said. “It’s just a miracle he lived.”
Before Moxley sent Linn to intensive care, he repaired a hole in Linn’s palate and put in plates and screws to move Linn’s broken jaw into proper position. His lip was sutured. Broken teeth were taken out of the back of his neck.
Today, Linn does exercises for his jaw.
“It was wired shut, and I can’t open it wide enough right now to get the dentures on my right side,” he said. “I hope that will happen in a couple of months along with some cosmetic surgery for my lip.”
His right shoulder was badly hurt in the crash and will require surgery within the next three months. Linn spent only two weeks in the hospital after the accident.
His friends try to help him through his recovery with humor.
“I had this one friend ask me whether I was going to the NASCAR race in Las Vegas. And I told him, no. And then he said, ‘I was sure you were. I thought you won the pole position.’ ”
Relics stolen from Forbidden City museum Reply
BEIJING, May 11 (UPI) — Several relics belonging to a Hong Kong museum have been stolen from a temporary exhibit at the Palace Museum in Beijing, Chinese officials said Wednesday.
A spokesman for the museum located in China’s Forbidden City said the missing items include small Western-style makeup cases encrusted with jewels, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported.
Feng Nai’en, an assistant curator, said a suspicious man being questioned by a museum staff member fled Sunday night after authorities were called.
Staff and armed police searched for the man but he apparently escaped with some pieces.
Two of the missing relics have been recovered but both were slightly damaged, Feng said.
He said the Palace Museum has issued a formal apology to the Hong Kong museum and is increasing security for the exhibit.
There was no information on the value, number or age of the missing items.
The last theft at the Palace Museum was in 1991.
Find Out if You’re a Target in the Biggest U.S. BitTorrent Lawsuit Ever Reply
More than 23,000 people will soon be notified by their internet service providers that their subscriber information is being turned over to lawyers suing over the 2010 Sylvester Stallone flick The Expendables.
As we first reported Monday, the case is the largest BitTorrent file-sharing lawsuit in U.S. history.
We just updated our IP Detective tool with the 23,322 IP addresses targeted between Feb. 5 and April 22 in the mass lawsuit filed by the Washington-based U.S. Copyright Group on behalf of Nu Image.
All told, more than 140,000 BitTorrent downloaders are being targeted in dozens of lawsuits across the country, many of them for downloading B-grade movies and porn. Film companies pay snoops to troll BitTorrent sites, dip into active torrents and capture the IP addresses of the peers who are downloading and uploading pieces of the files.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a great resource on what to do if you’re a target.
As before, our (WIRED) widget also will attempt to check if you’re one of the nearly 6,000 targets in the controversial Nude Nuns with Big Guns case, or the OpenMind Solutions lawsuit going after nearly 3,000 alleged porn downloaders.
WikiLeaks: Julian Assange given peace prize (Video of award ceremony) 1
Julian Assange, the founder of whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, has been awarded an award “for exceptional courage in pursuit of human rights”.
Mr Assange was given the Sydney Peace Medal at a ceremony at the Frontline Club in central London today.
Speaking at the event, Mr Assange referred to whistleblowers as “heroes” and said it appeared the website had played a “significant role” in the recent Arab uprisings in north Africa by releasing US diplomatic cables in December that were later translated into Arabic and French.
Mr Assange is currently staying in Norfolk while he fights extradition to Sweden over allegations of sexual crimes, which he denies.
Full story here: The Telegraph | Christopher Hope 6:56PM BST 10 May 2011
WikiLeaks: Julian Assange given peace prize, posted with vodpod
Twit causes #superinjunction chaos on Twitter Reply
A Twitterer briefly brought down the asocial self-promotional site last night after posting what were claimed to be details of famous folk said to have shagged one another.
These folk with more money than morals have been hiding behind so-called superinjunctions in a bid – in many cases – to stop their spouses finding out they’ve been indulging in a bit of extra-marital hanky-panky.
Footballers, TV presenters and luvvies have been able to use the injunctions to stop newspapers running stories about their private lives. But the likes of Twitter it seems are beyond the reach of the law, so long as you can first find out who’s dipped their wick in whom, it seems.
The one bloke we do know to have used a superinjunction to stop the fact he had poked a woman he’s not married to is BBC journalist Andrew Marr, which is indeed bizarre as he’s the person perhaps least likely to have had such allegations about him believed – which may be why he came out and and confessed. A bit like John Major, he’s one of the few who’d go up in the public’s estimation on revelations he was able to pull.
Superinjunctions are apparently sent out to media outlets to let them know who doesn’t want certain things written about them. We didn’t get any, so we don’t know who we can’t write about and who’s fair game. At best we could probably ask Twitter.
We do know that Gabby Logan didn’t sleep with Alan Shearer because she said so, erm, on Twitter. And Gemima Khan didn’t sleep with Jeremy Clarkson because she’s got more sense – and she said so on Twitter. We’ve no idea who Ryan Giggs has been sleeping with.
There’s a #superinjunction hashtag on Twitter for those with nothing better to do.
Thinq | Written by Paul Hales on 09 May, 2011
The Trump Slumps… Reply
According to the latest poll by Public Policy Polling, Trump, the not-so-bashful candidate in waiting, has had one of the quickest rises — and now falls — in presidential politics. The Democratic polling company once had Trump leading the more than a dozen possible GOP contenders with 26%, but now the reality show host and businessman is down to 8%, in a tie for fifth place with Texas Rep. Ron Paul.
Honestly, I find the GOP potential presidential candidates gene pools to be very frightening. I can only shudder at the thought of Trump-Bachmann ticket, with the Koch Brothers in the background with all the funding….
