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American Taxi owner FDLE criminal report, SCARY !!

Robert — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 06:45:19 +0000

WARNING…..WARNING…..WARNING…..WARNING…..WARNING…..WARNING…..WARNING…..

Criminal History

–FLORIDA CCH RESPONSE–

ATN/ANONCCHINET/CCHINET/

FC.DLE/5461930.PUR/P.ATN/ANONCCHINET/CCHINET/

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 1

BECAUSE ADDITIONS OR DELETIONS MAY BE MADE AT ANY TIME,

A NEW COPY SHOULD BE REQUESTED WHEN NEEDED FOR FUTURE USE

- FLORIDA CRIMINAL HISTORY -

NAME STATE ID NO. FBI NO. DATE REQUESTED

JACKSON, DONALD LEE FL-05461930 02/09/2007

SEX RACE BIRTH DATE HEIGHT WEIGHT EYES HAIR BIRTH PLACE SKIN DOC NO.

M W 10/16/1962 6′00” 190 GRN BRO OH LGT

–CONTINUED–

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 2

FINGERPRINT CLASS SOCIAL SECURITY NO. MISCELLANEOUS NO. SCR/MRK/TAT

04 08 03 08 06 XXX-XX-7106

03 07 TT 08 09

IN AFIS – 2

OCCUPATION ADDRESS CITY/STATE

MANAGER 291 MAIN ST PIERSON, FL

—————————————————————————–

AKA DOB SOC SCR/MRK/TAT

—————————————————————————–

JACKSON, DONALD

JACKSON, DONALD LEE JR

–CONTINUED–

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 3

JACKSON, DONALD L

JACKSON, DONALD L SR

——————————————————————————

ARREST- 1 08/16/2001 OBTS NO.-5901023808

ARREST AGENCY-ALTAMONTE SPRINGS POLICE DEPARTMENT (FL0590100)

AGENCY CASE-0100011249 OFFENSE DATE-

CHARGE 001-CONTEMPT OF COURT-

VIOL INJUNCTION PROTECTION DOMESTIC VI DOM VIO

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL741.31(4A) LEVEL-MISDEMEANOR,1ST DEG

DISP-

——————————————————————————

ARREST- 2 10/03/2001 OBTS NO.-6402026798

ARREST AGENCY-VOLUSIA COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE (FL0640000)

–CONTINUED–

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 4

AGENCY CASE-516409 OFFENSE DATE-

CHARGE 001-OUT-OF-STATE-FUG REF-

OHIO WRT DV DISCHARGE WEAPON VOP

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL941.02 LEVEL-FELONY

DISP-

——————————————————————————

ARREST- 3 11/04/2001 OBTS NO.-6401059034

ARREST AGENCY-ORMOND BEACH POLICE DEPARTMENT (FL0640400)

AGENCY CASE-518723 OFFENSE DATE-

CHARGE 001-OUT-OF-STATE-FUG REF-

OHIO WARRANT VIOLATION ORDER FOR PROTECTION

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL941.02 LEVEL-FELONY

DISP-

–CONTINUED–

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 5

——————————————————————————

ARREST- 4 12/08/2001 OBTS NO.-6401060193

ARREST AGENCY-VOLUSIA COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE (FL0640000)

AGENCY CASE-521048 OFFENSE DATE-

CHARGE 001-CONTEMPT OF COURT-

VIOL INJUNCTION PROTECTION DOMESTIC VI DOM VIO

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL741.31(4A) LEVEL-MISDEMEANOR,1ST DEG

DISP-

CHARGE 002-CONTEMPT OF COURT-

VIOL INJUNCTION PROTECTION DOMESTIC VI DOM VIO

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL741.31(4A) LEVEL-MISDEMEANOR,1ST DEG

DISP-

——————————————————————————

–CONTINUED–

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 6

ARREST- 5 12/19/2001 OBTS NO.-6401060660

ARREST AGENCY-VOLUSIA COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE (FL0640000)

AGENCY CASE-521760 OFFENSE DATE-

CHARGE 001-AGGRAV STALKING-

FOLLOW HARASS THREATEN W DEATH OF INJURY

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL784.048(3) LEVEL-FELONY ,3RD DEG

DISP-

LAKE COUNTY WARRANT

-TURNED OVER TO ANOTHER AGENCY

FL0350000

JUDICIAL-

AGENCY-5TH CIRCUIT COURT – TAVARES (FL035015J)

CHARGE 001 -COURT SEQ COURT NO.-352001CF002640XXXAXX

–CONTINUED–

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 7

SUPPLEMENTAL ARREST DATA-

STATUS- LEVEL-FELONY ,3RD DEG

PROSC DATA- AGGRAV STALKING-

AGGRAVATED STALKING

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL784.048(4) LEVEL-FELONY ,3RD DEG

STATUTE DESCRIPTN-FOLLOW HARASS CYBERSTALK AFTER INJUNCTION

DISP DATE-01/30/2002 DISP-N/A

COURT DATA-REDUCED ,AGGRAV STALKING-

ATTEMPTED AGGRAV STALKING

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL784.048(3) LEVEL-FELONY ,3RD DEG

STATUTE DESCRIPTN-FOLLOW HARASS CYBERSTALK DEATH INJURY

DISP DATE-04/19/2004 DISP-GUILTY/CONVICTED

COUNSEL-PUBLIC TRIAL-NONE PLEA-GUILTY

–CONTINUED–

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 8

SENT DATE-04/19/2004

CONFINEMENT- – 11M29D,JAIL

SUSPENDED SENT-99Y CREDITED TIME- 362D

FINE- COURT COST- $871

CRT PROVISIONS-ABIDE BY COURT RESTRICTIONS

SPECIAL SENTENCE PROVISIONS-NOT APPLICABLE

——————————————————————————

ARREST- 6 10/11/2002 OBTS NO.-6402037092

ARREST AGENCY-VOLUSIA COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE (FL0640000)

AGENCY CASE-543319 OFFENSE DATE-

CHARGE 001-FAILURE TO APPEAR-

FTA AGGRAVATED STALKING

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL843.15(1A) LEVEL-FELONY ,3RD DEG

–CONTINUED–

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 9

DISP-

LAKE COUNTY WARRANT

——————————————————————————

ARREST- 7 10/14/2002 OBTS NO.-3501031616

ARREST AGENCY-LAKE COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE (FL0350000)

AGENCY CASE-50337 OFFENSE DATE-

CHARGE 001-FAILURE TO APPEAR-

FTA AGG STALKING FTA

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL843.15(1A) LEVEL-FELONY ,3RD DEG

DISP-HELD

——————————————————————————

ARREST- 8 11/27/2002 OBTS NO.-3501032754

ARREST AGENCY-LAKE COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE (FL0350000)

–CONTINUED–

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 10

AGENCY CASE-50337 OFFENSE DATE-

CHARGE 001-AGGRAV STALKING-

FOLLOW HARASS THREATEN W DEATH OF INJURY

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL784.048(3) LEVEL-FELONY ,3RD DEG

DISP-HELD

CHARGE 002-CONTEMPT OF COURT-

VIOL INJUNCTION PROTECTION DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL741.31(4A) LEVEL-MISDEMEANOR,1ST DEG

DISP-HELD

——————————————————————————

ARREST- 9 04/03/2003 OBTS NO.-6402042680

ARREST AGENCY-VOLUSIA COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE (FL0640000)

AGENCY CASE-555540 OFFENSE DATE-

–CONTINUED–

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 11

CHARGE 001-AGGRAV BATTERY-

CAUSE BODILY HARM OR DISABILITY

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL784.045(1A1) LEVEL-FELONY ,2ND DEG

DISP-HELD

JUDICIAL-

AGENCY-7TH CIRCUIT COURT, VOLUSIA CO COURTHOUSE ANNEX (FL064015J)

CHARGE 001 -COURT SEQ COURT NO.-642003CF031603XXXAES

SUPPLEMENTAL ARREST DATA-

STATUS- LEVEL-FELONY ,2ND DEG

PROSC DATA- AGGRAV BATTERY-

AGG BATT PREGNANT PERSON

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL784.045(1B) LEVEL-FELONY ,2ND DEG

STATUTE DESCRIPTN-OFFENDER KNEW/SHOULD HAVE KNOWN VICT PREGNANT

–CONTINUED–

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 12

DISP DATE-04/22/2003 DISP-N/A

COURT DATA-REDUCED ,BATTERY-

BATTERY

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL784.03 LEVEL-MISDEMEANOR,1ST DEG

STATUTE DESCRIPTN-BATTERY

DISP DATE-12/10/2003 DISP-GUILTY/CONVICTED

COUNSEL-PUBLIC TRIAL-NONE PLEA-NOLO CONTENDRE

SENT DATE-09/09/2004

CONFINEMENT- - 2M ,JAIL

SUSPENDED SENT- CREDITED TIME- 35D

FINE- COURT COST- $108

SPECIAL SENTENCE PROVISIONS-NOT APPLICABLE

——————————————————————————

–CONTINUED–

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 13

ARREST- 10 08/02/2003 OBTS NO.-5901037658

ARREST AGENCY-SEMINOLE COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE (FL0590000)

AGENCY CASE-2003009570 OFFENSE DATE-

CHARGE 001-FAILURE TO APPEAR-

WRITTEN PROMISE TO APPEAR FEL MISD UNK NON JUV

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL901.31 LEVEL-FELONY

DISP-HELD

FTA AGG STALKING/DOM VIOL

——————————————————————————

ARREST- 11 12/13/2003 OBTS NO.-5902046979

ARREST AGENCY-SEMINOLE COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE (FL0590000)

AGENCY CASE-0300009570 OFFENSE DATE-

CHARGE 001-OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE-

–CONTINUED–

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 14

INJ RETALIATE AGAINST INFORMANT VICTIM WITNESS

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL914.23 LEVEL-FELONY ,2ND DEG

DISP-HELD

THREATENING BODILY HARM

CHARGE 002-FAILURE TO APPEAR-

WRITTEN PROMISE TO APPEAR

002 CNTS,

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL901.31 LEVEL-

DISP-HELD

——————————————————————————

ARREST- 12 12/14/2003 OBTS NO.-4803038819

ARREST AGENCY-ORANGE COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE (FL0480000)

AGENCY CASE-438442 OFFENSE DATE-

–CONTINUED–

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 15

CHARGE 001-CONTEMPT OF COURT-

VIOL INJUNCTION AGAINST REPEATED VIOLENCE

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL784.047 LEVEL-MISDEMEANOR,1ST DEG

DISP-HELD

CHARGE 002-CONTEMPT OF COURT-

VIOL INJUNCTION AGAINST REPEATED VIOLENCE

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL784.047 LEVEL-MISDEMEANOR,1ST DEG

DISP-HELD

CHARGE 003-OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE-

INJ RETALIATE AGAINST INFORMANT VICTIM WITNESS

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL914.23 LEVEL-FELONY ,2ND DEG

DISP-HELD

JUDICIAL-

–CONTINUED–

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 16

AGENCY-9TH CIRCUIT COURT – ORLANDO (FL048015J)

ADDED CHG -COURT SEQ COURT NO.-482003CF009865AXXXOX

SUPPLEMENTAL ARREST DATA-

STATUS- LEVEL-FELONY ,3RD DEG

PROSC DATA-INITIATED BY PROSECU,OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE-

OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL914.23(2) LEVEL-FELONY ,3RD DEG

DISP DATE-08/11/2003 DISP-N/A

COURT DATA-REDUCED ,CONTEMPT OF COURT-

CONTEMPT OF COURT

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL784.047 LEVEL-MISDEMEANOR,1ST DEG

STATUTE DESCRIPTN-VIOL INJUNCTION REPEAT SEX DATE VIOL

DISP DATE-04/22/2004 DISP-GUILTY/CONVICTED

–CONTINUED–

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 17

COUNSEL-PUBLIC TRIAL-NONE PLEA-NOLO CONTENDRE

SENT DATE-04/22/2004

CONFINEMENT- - 4M10D,JAIL

SUSPENDED SENT- CREDITED TIME- 130D

SPECIAL SENTENCE PROVISIONS-NOT APPLICABLE

——————————————————————————

ARREST- 13 12/18/2003 OBTS NO.-3501044277

ARREST AGENCY-LAKE COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE (FL0350000)

AGENCY CASE-50337 OFFENSE DATE-

CHARGE 001-MUNICIPAL ORDINANCE VIOL-

RETURN FOR COURT FTA AGG STALKING

DISP-

LAKE CASE# 01CF2640

–CONTINUED–

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 18

——————————————————————————

ARREST- 14 03/11/2004 OBTS NO.-3501046371

ARREST AGENCY-LAKE COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE (FL0350000)

AGENCY CASE-50337 OFFENSE DATE-

CHARGE 001-FAILURE TO APPEAR-

FAILURE TO APPEAR AGG STALKING

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL843.15(1A) LEVEL-FELONY ,3RD DEG

DISP-HELD

——————————————————————————

ARREST- 15 04/23/2004 OBTS NO.-6402064214

ARREST AGENCY-VOLUSIA COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE (FL0640000)

AGENCY CASE-585404 OFFENSE DATE-

CHARGE 001-FRAUD-

–CONTINUED–

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 19

UTTER FALSE INSTRUMENT

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL831.02 LEVEL-FELONY ,3RD DEG

DISP-HELD

WRNT VOLUSIA CO

JUDICIAL-

AGENCY-7TH CIRCUIT COURT, VOLUSIA CO COURTHOUSE ANNEX (FL064015J)

CHARGE 001 -COURT SEQ COURT NO.-642003CF032701XXXAES

SUPPLEMENTAL ARREST DATA-

STATUS- LEVEL-FELONY ,3RD DEG

PROSC DATA- FRAUD-

UTTERING A FORGERY

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL831.02 LEVEL-FELONY ,3RD DEG

STATUTE DESCRIPTN-ALTERED INSTRUMENT

–CONTINUED–

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 20

DISP DATE-05/11/2004 DISP-N/A

COURT DATA-FRAUD-

UTTERING A FORGERY

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL831.02 LEVEL-FELONY ,3RD DEG

STATUTE DESCRIPTN-ALTERED INSTRUMENT

DISP DATE-09/09/2004 DISP-GUILTY/CONVICTED

COUNSEL-PUBLIC TRIAL-NONE PLEA-NOLO CONTENDRE

SENT DATE-09/09/2004

CONFINEMENT- - 2M ,JAIL

CONCURRENT ,99999999999999

SUSPENDED SENT- CREDITED TIME- 35D

SPECIAL SENTENCE PROVISIONS-NOT APPLICABLE

——————————————————————————

–CONTINUED–

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 21

ARREST- 16 05/11/2004 OBTS NO.-6402065286

ARREST AGENCY-DAYTONA BEACH POLICE DEPARTMENT (FL0640100)

AGENCY CASE-586849 OFFENSE DATE-

CHARGE 001-STALKING-

FOLLOW HARASS CYBERSTALK ANOTHER

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL784.048(2) LEVEL-MISDEMEANOR,1ST DEG

DISP-HELD

WRNT VOLUSIA CO

——————————————————————————

ARREST- 17 08/19/2004 OBTS NO.-6402071116

ARREST AGENCY-VOLUSIA COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE (FL0640000)

AGENCY CASE-594697 OFFENSE DATE-

CHARGE 001-AGGRAV STALKING-

–CONTINUED–

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 22

FOLLOW HARASS CYBERSTALK DEATH INJURY

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL784.048(3) LEVEL-FELONY ,3RD DEG

DISP-HELD

WRNT VOLUSIA CO

CHARGE 002-PROB VIOLATION-

PROB VIOLATION BATTERY

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL948.06 LEVEL-

DISP-HELD

WRNT VOLUSIA CO

JUDICIAL-

AGENCY-STATE ATTORNEY’S OFFICE – DAYTONA BEACH (FL064015A)

CHARGE 001 -COURT SEQ COURT NO.-642004CF034722XXXAES

SUPPLEMENTAL ARREST DATA-

–CONTINUED–

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 23

STATUS- LEVEL-FELONY ,3RD DEG

PROSC DATA- AGGRAV STALKING-

AGGRAVATED STALKING

STATUTE/ORDINANCE-FL784.048(3) LEVEL-FELONY ,3RD DEG

STATUTE DESCRIPTN-FOLLOW HARASS CYBERSTALK DEATH INJURY

DISP DATE-05/16/2005 DISP-NOLLE PROSSED

COUNSEL-PUBLIC TRIAL- PLEA-

SPECIAL SENTENCE PROVISIONS-NOT APPLICABLE

——————————————————————————

THIS RECORD CONTAINS FLORIDA INFORMATION ONLY. WHEN EXPLANATION OF A CHARGE

OR DISPOSITION IS NEEDED, COMMUNICATE DIRECTLY WITH THE AGENCY THAT CONTRIBU-

TED THE RECORD INFORMATION. IF YOU DID NOT SUBMIT FINGERPRINTS, THIS RECORD IS

PROVIDED AS A RESULT OF A NAME INQUIRY ONLY. POSITIVE IDENTIFICATION CAN ONLY

–CONTINUED–

SID NUMBER: 5461930 PURPOSE CODE:P PAGE: 24

BE VERIFIED BY SUBMISSION OF A FINGERPRINT CARD AND COMPARISON BY FDLE. THIS

RECORD WAS REQUESTED PURSUANT TO 943.053(3), F.S.

AS MANDATED BY FLORIDA STATUTE 119.071(5), FULL SOCIAL

SECURITY NUMBERS ARE NOW EXEMPT FROM PUBLIC DISCLOSURE

AND MAY BE DISCLOSED ONLY TO GOVERNMENTAL ENTITIES AND

CERTAIN COMMERCIAL ENTITIES (UPON A SHOWING OF BUSINESS

NECESSITY AS DEFINED BY THE LAW). FDLE WILL, HOWEVER,

RELEASE THE LAST FOUR DIGITS OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER.

EXAMPLE: XXX XX 1234.

THIS CONTAINS FLORIDA RECORD ONLY.

UNKNOWN AS TO NATIONAL RECORD STATUS.

END OF RECORD

–END–

WARNING…..WARNING…..WARNING…..WARNING…..WARNING…..WARNING…..WARNING…..

This is the owner/operator of American Taxi in Daytona Beach, if you’re like me you should be appalled that he is allowed to operate, contact the City of Daytona Beach city manager’s office at 386-671-8010 and request the city revoke his license.

Downhill

jhintze — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:08:33 +0000

I thought maybe I would try to get a picture of the boys sitting in front of the Christmas tree this evening. Nothing fancy at all, just something in front of the tree so I can say I did. They were both in their pajamas so I thought I would give it a try. I got a somewhat decent one right off the bat. Not too bad, right?

But maybe I can do better. Maybe I can get one that’s a *little* better. I’ll keep trying…

Nope, that’s not it. Let’s keep trying. This is bound to work.

Hmmm…it seems things might be going downhill.

and fast…

Yep. Looks like we’re all done here.

Here’s one of Jack, the congenial child.

And here’s Mikey, the…. well, the one with the cute hair. It might appear that he’s being cooperative in this next picture but don’t be fooled. The only reason he’s looking at the camera is because I gave him strict orders not to. Reverse psychology still works on him for now.

And this one I told him that I was just taking a picture of the monkey on his sleeper so he thought he was off the hook. I lie to children. Did you know that?

My favorite is definitely this one. It’s so awful.

Michael Jackson Halloween Costumes, Michael Jackson Memorial

michaeljacksonmemorialus — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:01:59 +0000

Author: Chuck White
Source: articlesbase.com

“This Halloween, you may want to get yourself and or your kids dressed up as the one and only King of Pop, the Gloved One himself, Michael Jackson. In other words, you’re going to be looking for a Michael Jackson Halloween Costume. Fortunately, there are lots of choices of such costumes available on the Internet. A quick Google search brought up dozens of choices. Some stores, such as Amazon.com have several choices in fact. They range from a costume by Zooger Costumes which has the famous “nehru” style jacket and the sequined glove to a thriller style costume where you can actually wear the face of a dead man playing well, a dead man. Then there is the Billie Jean Costume and the Moon Walker costume. But what if you want something simpler? After-all, in this day and age, one needs to economize. You could try for a simple black jacket for starters. Even a black windbreaker can easily be adapted. What you would do is to purchase the black jacket, then adapt it by buying some silver colored tassels to glue across the front, creating a look like the Nehru jacket. Or if you want to do a Thriller look, why not try to buy some fake blood to create the small “scar” Michael wore in the music video. Then for the hair, you can use some heavy hair jell and a curler to create a look similar to Michael’s famous hair, “Michael Jackson“, . The rest is really about attitude. You just need to be able to walk like Micahel. A cheap hat could help as well, especially if you wear it like Michael did, titled all the way, “Michael Jackson“, forward and looking like a rock star. In fact, if your heart is set on a Michael Jackson Halloween costume then you could actually go a long way to doing just through the attitude thing and thinking to yourself, “I’m a rock star.” Some of the most famous illusionists did their work not with heavy make up, but instead by simply looking the part. Think about Eddie Murphy every time he plays a role in one of his movies. He never puts on makeup, but he can instantly go from being a bad ass cop to a scared delivery guy with just a bit of water, a paper bag and some attitude. So for this Halloween, when you want that Michael Jackson Halloween costume, try to think creatively instead of wasting lots of money.

Find michael jackson halloween costume kid on http://www.michael-jackson-halloween-costumes.com;. Discover the latest update on this topic

Michael Jackson Wig, Michael Jackson Memorial

michaeljacksonmemorialus — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:01:36 +0000

Author: Chuck White
Source: articlesbase.com

“This Halloween, you know there is going to be a huge demand for pairs of sunglasses, sequined gloves, leather jackets and flat black hats. Yes, the world will be going crazy with tributes to the man himself, the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, or, “Michael Jackson“, as he was known to his fans, the Gloved One. But there is one piece of the puzzle that might be missing there. The one that is probably most important of all. The iconic Michael Jackson hair. You can of course buy a Michael Jackson wig but we’re here to offer you all kinds of other alternatives to that. Start with some serious amounts of hair jel. You know that Michael Jackson had long black hair. He used to wear it in a variety of styles, sometimes curly and sometimes it was long and straight. If you simply make use of some hair jel, you you can slick your hair back and create a Michael Jackson like effect without any need to buy a Michael Jackson wig. Add in perhaps a bit of talcum powder to give your face a faded look as Michael’s looked from all the surgeries he underwent (he had undergone a series of skin grafts in order to make his skin look white) and you’ll have the perfect Michael Jackson wig without any need for the actual wig.But what if you really had your heart set on an honest to goodness Michael Jackson wig? If that is your desire, you are definitely in luck. A quick Google search brought up, “Michael Jackson“, lots of options. My first stop when shopping for stuff like this is usually Amazon.com, not because they are necessarily cheaper, but rather because of the fact that they offer free super-saver shipping when you spend over $25. This is a great deal and if you are buying for yourself and your kid for example, then you could easily get everything you need and never have to leave the comfort of your own home.Some of the options I found on Amazon.com include an 80s style Michael Jackson wig which recalls his time at the top of the charts. It’s got short, bushy dark hair and comes only with the wig. Or if you want to go for something a little more elaborate, for under $17, I found a straight long haired wig, like the gloved one used to wear in the latter part of his life which comes together with a pair of aviator style sun glasses. Whatever style of Michael Jackson wig you choose though, the most important thing, is just have fun and have a safe Halloween.

Find michael jackson wig on http://www.michael-jackson-halloween-costumes.com;. Discover the latest update on this topic

De 10 dårligste kinofilmene 2009

denhoyefotograf — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:02:59 +0000

Det er 30. november i dag, og dermed vil logikken tilsi at det er 1. desember i morgen. Den Høye Fotograf skal opprettholde det som nå er blitt en av de nyeste nasjonale juletradisjonene, nemlig julekalenderen der de beste kinofilmene fra året telles ned. 24 filmer på listen, og årets beste film avsløres på selveste julaften!

Men, som i tidligere år, før vi kan begynne på de gode filmene, tar vi et tilbakeblikk på det som etter min mening er de verste filmene 2009 har å komme med.

10. Død Snø

Heil Hitler und Eva Braaaaiins!

Her er det nok mange som er ganske uenige. Død Snø fikk mye skryt og ble til og med vist en del rundt i USA. Og grunnlaget til historien syntes jeg også hørtes bra ut. Nazi-Zombier i fjellheimen? Bjørn Sundquist? Kjempegode tegn på en artig splatterkomedie. Men så så jeg hvem som stod bak, nemlig de samme som lagde Kill Buljo. Og Kill Buljo er lett en av de dårligste komediene jeg har sett.

Du merker det helt fra begynnelsen at ting ikke er som det skal. Håpløst skuespill, dårlige vitser. Den første delen av filmen er skikkelig smertefull å sitte gjennom. Heldigvis redder den seg litt mot slutten, med en zombieslakting som er nettopp så over-the-top som den bør være.

Men vi har sett det før, og bedre også. Så bare fordi det er en norsk film, så betyr ikke det at det er nødvendig å hoppe i taket når det dukker opp zombier. Den lever ikke opp til Sam Raimi og Peter Jackson sine splatterkomedier verken når det gjelder splatt eller komedie, og derfor blir dette mer dårlig enn bra.

4/10

9. Bedtime Stories

Adam Sandler prøver å dekke til filmen, men for sent.

Nok en gang syntes jeg konseptet hørtes rimelig gøy ut. Barna til Adam Sandler finner på historier sammen med han, og neste dag blir det de fant på sant. Dessverre er det altfor åpenbart at det er lagd for unger. Jeg mener at det bør kunne gå an å lage en film som er like god både for barn og voksne (noe Pixar pleier å være gode på, f. eks.). Dette her blir altfor lettvint og dermed litt kjedelig å se på. Et lite høydepunkt med komikeren Russell Brand, som hjelper filmen det lille steget opp fra den verste sumpen.

4/10

8. The Taking of Pelham 123

“Ingen går før jeg er ferdig med fortellingen om Xenu!”

Her kunne det egentlig gå begge veier. Den er regissert av Tony Scott, broren til Ridley, som har hatt sin kvote av både hits and misses. Rollelisten er fylt av stjerner. Denzel Washington, John Travolta og James “Soprano” Gandolfini.

Dessverre fungerer det dårlig. Tony Scott får for frie tøyler med stilen. Det er fargekorrigering på høyt nivå, raske kjøringer som går 360 grader rundt folk når de snakker sammen. Litt for frenetisk. John Travolta har fått en heller dårlig skurkerolle å spille, og ingen gjør det egentlig bra nok til at du klarer å leve deg skikkelig inn i filmen. Når det er på sitt mest dramatiske, og ting går galt, så reagerer du mest med litt irritasjon over at slutten blir utsatt litt lenger. Inneholder også en fantastisk latterlig lydeffekt som dukker opp hver gang vi blir fortalt hvor lenge det er igjen til deadline.

Svak 4/10

7. Transporter 3

Hvem trenger våpen? Spark en hjelm!

Her hadde jeg vel lite håp om at det skulle bli noe særlig kvalitet, men gikk inn og håpet på de gode actionscenene. Det klarte den til en viss grad å levere, selv om det var et par steg ned i kvalitet fra de to første i serien. Nei, det som skaffer denne en plass på listen over årets 10 dårligste er passasjeren transportøren må ha med seg i bilen. Et forferdelig kvinnemenneske som jeg har sterke mistanker om at har ligget seg til denne rollen. For det er rett og slett en av de verste skuespillerprestasjonene jeg har sett. Og siden hun er med på hele turen, er det nok av forferdelige samtaler å måtte høre på.

Heldigvis reddes altså litt av opplevelsen av underholdningen vi får servert i form av slåssing og biljakt og diverse, men like stor som entusiasmen over action er lettelsen over å slippe verdens mest irriterende dame for et øyeblikk eller to.

Uhyyyre svak 4/10

6. Revanche

“What’s the hardest part about being you?” “The mustache.”

Revanche er vel den filmen på denne listen som regnes som den beste, sånn generelt sett. Veldig smal, østerrisk film som ble nominert til Oscar for beste utenlandske film i år, og den har 7.6/10 på IMDb. Jeg forstår hva de hadde lyst å lage når de lagde denne filmen, og jeg tror nok de er ganske fornøyde.

Det er bare det at jeg ikke liker den noe særlig. Den er veldig langdradd. Jeg satt gjennom hele filmen og ventet på at det skulle skje noe, at det skulle “ta av”. Men nei, den holder seg på bakkenivå, og altfor mye av tiden bruker vi på å se hovedpersonen hogge ved. I tillegg er slutten et stort antiklimaks, og dermed blir dette en øvelse i kjedsomhet som jeg aller helst vil slippe å gå gjennom en gang til.

3/10

5. Seven Pounds

“I’ll do my crying in the rain… And in a car, as well.”

Nok en film som “folk flest” liker. Øve 50 000 stemmer gir denne et gjennomsnitt på 7.6/10 på IMDb. Men, folk tar feil. Seven Pounds er kjedelig, forutsigbar og har en tåpelig slutt. Jeg føler ikke jeg ødelegger for deg når jeg avslører at Will Smith sin karakter donerer bort øynene sine. Og så møter mottakeren på en dame til slutt, og hun sier at hun kjenner igjen øynene til Will Smith(!?). Hele filmen er rett og slett litt teit. Eneste som hjelper litt er en del bra skuespill, men det er uansett en av de dårligste filmene i 2009.

3/10

The Spirit

Logiske reiseruter har aldri vært the Spirits styrke.

Frank Miller er ganske kjent i tegneserie-verdenen, og tok for alvor turen over i filmverdenen med Sin City, som han regisserte sammen med Robert Rodriguez. Etter det hadde 300 stor suksess, basert på Millers grafiske roman. Og så skulle han altså få lov å regissere sin egen film, The Spirit. Selvfølgelig også basert på en tegneserie.

Det beste her er jo definitivt det visuelle. Selv om det føles ganske likt Sin City, så syns jeg det ser ganske bra ut med den nesten-svart-hvitt-stilen. Alt det andre i filmen, derimot, er ganske dårlig. Dårlig humor, dårlig skuespill og aller mest et dårlig manus.

3/10

3. Couples Retreat

Folk har merket seg at det svarte paret er fjernet fra den engelske (og norske) plakaten.

Et godt cast fikk meg ti å se denne, noe jeg angrer bittert på. Det var kanskje et par ganger jeg lo i løpet av to lange timer, og Kristen Bell og Jason Bateman er skuespillere jeg liker, men denne filmen feiler stort som komedie. Vitsene er dårlige, det virker som om de har brukt altfor lite tid på å skrive manuset. I tillegg så er klippingen gjort sånn at den ved noen tilfeller ødelegger mye av den komiske timingen.

Men det som er verst er hvordan de prøver å tvinge gjennom konflikter og løsninger med manuset. Det blir utrolig lite troverdig, og jeg blir sittende og irritere meg over hvor lite gjennomført det er. Couples Retreat fortjener godt plassen blant de tre dårligste filmene jeg så på kino i 09.

2/10

2. Absolute Evil

Hadde ringen hennes vært ekte, ville den nok kostet mer enn det gjorde å lage filmen.

Denne så jeg på filmfestivalen i Berlin, og den har nok ikke kommet ut på kino noe som helst annet sted ennå. Absolute Evil er en av de mest latterlig dårlige filmene jeg har sett. Det er rett nok en B-film og stolt av det, men det får være grenser. Alt er tåpelig. Historien er idiotisk, replikkene forferdelige og måten de blir levert på enda verre. Det eneste som holder denne filmen fra bunnkarakter er at det noen ganger blir så sinnsykt dårlig at det fungerer bra som en komedie, eller hvertfall bedre enn Couples Retreat…

Hvis du får tak på denne, så må jeg nesten bare anbefale at du ser den, for det er umulig å beskrive for fantastisk dårlig den er. Etter filmen fikk vi også se på verdens pinligste spørrerunde med de som var med i filmen. Det var ingen som hadde spørsmål.

2/10

1. Rage

Ja, dette er altså Jude Law i filmen. Jude Law er en mann.

Førsteplassen kapres også av en film jeg så i Berlin, og dessverre er den nok lite kjent for folk som ikke var der. Men denne filmen er virkelig spektakulært dårlig. Konseptet er at en ung filmskaper filmer intervjuer med mennesker som jobber i og rundt et moteshow som går fryktelig galt. Hele filmen er kun intervjubilder (som bildet av Jude Law over) med varierende grelle farger i bakgrunnen.

Det er et bra cast som er med, både Judi Dench, Steve Buscemi, John Leguizamo og Eddie Izzard er med, i tillegg til nevnte Law. Men for meg hjelper det ingenting når dette ikke fortjener å være en film i det hele tatt. Denne fortellerteknikken er uhyre kjedelig, og de dramatiske tingene som skjer får vi jo kun gjenfortalt av en person som snakker til oss, alltid i samme type bilde. Dette her er en bok, eller i beste fall et teaterstykke. Skal du lage film, syns jeg du skal bruke kameraet til noe annet enn bare å ta opp.

Filmen er bygd opp i deler, hver del begynner med “My first day”, “My second day”, osv. Som et tegn på hvor kjedelig filmen var, kan jeg fortelle at når teksten “My last day” kom opp på skjermen, var det spredt applaus i salen. Så glade ble folk av å vite at det snart ville være slutt.

Rage er den verste filmen jeg så på kino i år, med mindre den med tittelen sin faktisk prøvde å få meg rasende. I såfall har den nesten nådd målet sitt.

1/10

Følg med videre på bloggen for årets julekalender, der det altså skal handle om de beste filmene fra 2009. Begynner i morgen!

November 30, 2009 – Environmental Law Settlements, Decisions, Regulatory Actions and Lawsuit Filings

smtaber — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:25:48 +0000

November 30, 2009 – A summary review of environmental law settlements, decisions, regulatory actions and lawsuits filed during the past week. These were all first posted, in abbreviated form, on http://twitter.com/smtaber. If you would like to receive this update in an e-mail delivered to your inbox every Monday, please send an e-mail to subscribe@taberlaw.com with the word “subscribe” in the subject line.

SETTLEMENTS

City of Kendrick, Idaho pays $3,500 for wastewater violations. — EPA News Release, November 23, 2009
The City of Kendrick, Idaho has reached a $3,500 settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for alleged Clean Water Act violations at the city’s wastewater treatment plant. The city owns and operates the permitted plant that discharges treated wastewater into the Potlatch River. EPA alleges that from April 2005 through March 2009, the city’s plant had over 1,400 permit limit violations. The violations included exceeding the discharge limits for Escherichia coli (E. coli), biochemical oxygen demand, total suspended solids, pH and total residual chlorine.
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DEQ, Bishop Airport reach settlement on water quality violations. — David Harris, Flint Journal, November 23, 2009
Bishop Airport will construct a $5 million de-icing pad as part of a settlement to address Department of Environmental Quality violations of Michigan’s water quality protection laws. The violations relate to the unpermitted discharge of de-icing materials to surface waters of the state, according to a press release. Jim Rice, airport director, said 95 percent of the project will be paid for by the Federal Aviation Administration, while the state and the airport will cover the other 5 percent.
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Ohio EPA says two Cleveland companies reach settlement. — Scott Suttell, Crain’s Cleveland Business, November 24, 2009
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency said two Cleveland companies have agreed to pay the agency more than $72,000 to settle past hazardous waste violations at a manufacturing plant in the city. Zaclon LLC, which operates a chemical manufacturing plant at 2981 Independence Road, and Independence Land Development Co., the property owner, “have addressed the violations and now operate in compliance with Ohio’s hazardous waste laws,” Ohio EPA said in a news release.
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Verizon Wireless Voluntarily Discloses Environmental Violations. — EPA News Release, November 25, 2009
Verizon Wireless has agreed to pay a $468,600 civil penalty to settle self-disclosed violations of federal environmental regulations discovered at 655 facilities in 42 states. Verizon voluntarily entered into a corporate audit agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and conducted environmental compliance audits at more than 25,000 facilities nation-wide. The Environmental Appeals Board at EPA has approved an administrative settlement resolving violations Verizon found through its compliance audits.
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Other Articles on the Same Topic:

Verizon Wireless Violates Environmental Regulations In 655 Facilities, To Pay Nearly Half A Million In Fines. — The Huffington Post, November 25, 2009
The EPA has just announced that Verizon Wireless has agreed to pay a penalty of $468,000 for violating environmental regulations at 655 facilities in 42 states.
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EPA, and WildEarth Guardians look to settle suit over Utah air quality rules. — The Associated Press, November 24, 2009
An environmental group and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are seeking to settle a lawsuit aimed at getting Utah to change its air pollution regulations. WildEarth Guardians filed a lawsuit in September challenging Utah’s rules, specifically a provision that the group says lets facilities exceed emissions limits when pollution-control equipment breaks down. The group wants the EPA to tell the state the provision doesn’t comply with the federal Clean Air Act.
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DECISIONS

Clean Air Act Violators on Northwest Indian Reservations Face EPA Fines. — EPA News Release, November 23, 2009
A company and an individual on Indian reservations in the Northwest have agreed to pay penalties for violations of the Federal Air Rules for Indian Reservations under the Clean Air Act, according to two orders issued by the Environmental Protection Agency. The company failed to control its emissions and register with EPA, and the individual conducted outdoor burning during a burn ban, according to orders issued by the Environmental Protection Agency.
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California Appeals Court Affirms Lower Court Holding in Goodrich v. City of Rialto. — Leagle, November 23, 2009
Plaintiff Goodrich Corporation (Goodrich) appeals the judgment and order granting the demurrer to its petition for writ of mandate to compel defendant and respondent City of Rialto (the City) to enforce its own environmental mitigation [of perchlorate contamination] against real party in Interest and respondent Ken Thompson, Inc. (Thompson). Finding no errors, we affirm.
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EPA Issues Letter of Decision on Iowa Water Quality Standards. — EPA News Release, November 24, 2009
PA has approved 79 use designation changes and disapproved 71 use designation changes from Iowa’s August 2008 submittal of revised water quality standards. The revised standards support recreational activities and protect aquatic life uses in Iowa. In a previous action on March 22, 2009, EPA approved designated use changes for 83 water bodies. Iowa’s water quality standards contain more than one type of recreational use. Iowa’s primary contact recreation use designation protects for activities such as swimming, water skiing or tubing. Iowa’s secondary contact recreation use designation imposes less stringent pathogen criteria to protect for activities such as boating, fishing or wading.
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Judge sides with environmental groups in coal case. — Tim Huber, The Associated Press, November 24, 2009
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers violated federal environmental laws by failing to give the public enough of a say before issuing permits for mountaintop removal coal mines in West Virginia, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. The decision by U.S. District Judge Chuck Chambers involves permits issued to subsidiaries of Consol Energy and Penn Virginia Resources. But it could have far-reaching implications for the ongoing debate over mountaintop removal coal mining.
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Metro fined for release of acid into sewer pipes. — Maria Glod, The Washington Post, November 26, 2009
A federal judge ordered Metro to pay a $200,000 fine Wednesday for violating the Clean Water Act when it released hazardous chemicals into the sewer system over six days in 2003. In an unusual criminal case against the quasi-public agency, U.S. District Judge Roger W. Titus also ordered quarterly environmental inspections of the Branch Avenue rail yard during an 18-month probationary period. And Titus said Metro must inform all employees of the violation and provide him with evidence of steps taken to inform and educate workers about environmental policy.
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Sunoco fined $32,250 for refinery violations. — Toledo Blade, November 26, 2009
Sunoco Inc. has agreed to pay a $32,250 civil fine to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency for deficiencies found at its Toledo Refinery during inspections in April, 2008. EPA officials said the facility had four violations during the inspection, including failing to correct deficiencies in several pieces of equipment before further use and failing to address several recommendations in the process hazard analysis. Part of the fine, $6,450, will go to the agency’s Clean Diesel School Bus Program, with the rest directed to the EPA’s risk management plan fund.
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Enforcement failing nation’s Clean Water Act, report says. — Charles Duhig, The New York Times, November 29, 2009
One goal of the Clean Water Act of 1972 was to upgrade the nation’s sewer systems, many of them built more than a century ago, to handle growing populations and increasing runoff of rainwater and waste. During the 1970s and 1980s, Congress distributed more than $60 billion to cities to make sure that what goes into toilets, industrial drains and street grates would not endanger human health. But despite those upgrades, today, many sewer systems are still frequently overwhelmed, according to a New York Times analysis of environmental data. As a result, sewage — including human excrement and dangerous industrial chemicals — is spilling into waterways.
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LAWSUITS AND ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS FILED

Feds, Pa. County Sue Company Over Slag Dumping. — The Associated Press, November 23, 2009
The federal government and the Allegheny County Health Department have sued Allegheny Ludlum Corp. and a contractor for alleged air pollution violations at a slag dump near Pittsburgh. The lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court, says Ludlum and Harsco, based in Camp Hill, have been violating the Clean Air Act by allowing nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide and other pollutants into the air at a slag dump. The dump is near Ludlum’s silicon steel plant in Natrona, about 25 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
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Lawsuits put global warming on more dockets. — Chris Joyner, USA Today, November 23, 2009
A group of 12 Mississippi Gulf Coast homeowners is using a novel legal strategy to try to recoup losses suffered during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The lawsuit seeks damages from a group of 33 energy companies, including ExxonMobil and coal giant Peabody Energy, electric utilities, and other conglomerates for allegedly emitting greenhouse gases that the litigants say contributed to global warming. . . The key to the appeal was in the legal strategy, said Robert Percival, director of the Environmental Law Program at the University of Maryland. Rather than asking the court to force the companies to stop emitting greenhouse gases, the lawsuit asks for a ruling on whether damage suffered by the homeowners can be traced back to those emissions, he said.
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Ports Part Paths On Clean Truck Plans Long Beach Caves To Trucking Industry, LA Seeks Change In Federal Law. — Paul Rosenberg, Open Left, November 22, 2009
When the ports of Los Angeles (POLA) and Long Beach (POLB) announced their joint Clean Air Action Plan (CAAP) three years ago this month, they pledged to work closely together to clean up the air at both ports, with strong messages of support from the mayors of both cities. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa struck an optimistic note, focusing on economic growth, while Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster struck a tougher tone, saying, “The costs of these [environmental] impacts are already in the system, but the wrong people are paying them,”
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The Pesticide Wars. — Felice Pace, High Country News, November 24, 2009
If the American Farm Bureau Federation has its way, the issue of whether herbicide spraying over water requires a Clean Water Act permit will be heard by the Supreme Court. A coalition of agricultural groups led by the Federation has petitioned the nation’s highest court to reverse an appellate court decision which found that such spraying requires an NPDES clean water permit. NPDES permits are required when pollution is delivered to a water body from a point source. What constitutes a point source for Clean Water Act purposes has been a major US legal issue for well over a decade with several previous cases reaching the Supreme Court.
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Notice of Intent to Sue Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency for Failure to Perform Its Nondiscretionary Duty to Promulgate Numeric Nutrient Criteria for the State of Wisconsin. — Midwest Environmental Advocates, November 23, 2009
This letter is to provide notice, pursuant to the citizen suit provision of the Federal Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1365 (“CWA” or “the Act”), that Clean Water Action Council of Northeastern Wisconsin, Gulf Restoration Network, Milwaukee Riverkeeper, Prairie Rivers Network, River Alliance of Wisconsin, Sierra Club, and Wisconsin Wildlife Federation intend to file suit in the Federal District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin against the Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) for failing to perform its non-discretionary duty. under the Act to promulgate numeric nitrogen and phosphorus criteria for the state of Wisconsin.
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Other Articles on the Same Topic:

EPA warned of lawsuit over runoff pollution. — Lee Bergquist, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, November 25, 2009
The threat of a potential lawsuit could set the stage for new regulations of a pair of pollutants responsible for algae blooms and poor drinking water. Lawyers for several environmental groups notified the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday of its intent to file suit against the agency for failing to protect state water from two forms of nutrient pollution – phosphorus and nitrogen. Pollution sources include farm fields, manure, lawns and municipal wastewater treatment plants.
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Pike Township declares war on the Ohio EPA. —The Press-News, November 25, 2009
A group of Pike Township residents are asking others in the area to call, write or e-mail the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency about what they consider an unfair appropriation of funds from the fines recently assessed on Countywide Landfill. The Ohio EPA, Countywide Landfill and the Ohio Courts agreed on a settlement of $10,000,000 for Countywide’s actions at the landfill. Residents appreciate the attention of the Ohio EPA to severe environmental infractions at Countywide; however, the residents of Pike Township do not like the way settlement funds are being divided.
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Environment Michigan Challenges DTE on Carbon Dioxide Emissions. — Jeff Gillies, Capital News Service, November 25, 2009
Michigan’s power plants rank 13th nationwide for most carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution, and the Monroe coal-fired power plant is the 7th dirtiest plant in the country for 2007, according to a new analysis of government data released today by Environment Michigan. The United States relies heavily on outdated technology and limited resources for most of its electricity needs. While the production of clean, renewable energy such as wind and solar power is growing, the vast majority of American electricity comes from burning fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas—and from nuclear power.
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EBMUD Pardee Dam proposal draws lawsuit. — Roger Phelps, Ledger Dispatch, November 27, 2009
A lawsuit claims that East Bay Municipal Utility District violated state environmental law by omitting analysis of a proposed new Pardee Dam’s impacts on the Mokelumne River from its 2040 water plan review. The suit was filed by the nonprofit Foothill Conservancy and other resource-protection advocacy groups Nov. 19 in Amador County Superior Court.
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Residents challenge Pr. George’s over concrete plant. — Ovetta Wiggins, The Washington Post, November 27, 2009
With an asphalt plant, a recycling transfer station and a clay-mining operation down the street from his home, Thurman Jones Jr. hears dump trucks in his sleep. He sees dust on his car. And he occasionally smells an indescribable stench near the community center. If that weren’t enough, the Prince George’s County District Council voted last year to allow a developer to build a concrete plant a block away from Jones’s home in an unincorporated area known as Cedar Heights, a small working-class community just outside Fairmount Heights and Cheverly.
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Petition for Review. — National Corn Growers Association, National Sunflower Association, National Potato Council, and FMC Corporation, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, November 18, 2009
National Corn Growers Association, National Sunflower Association, National Potato Council, and FMC Corporation, by and through its undersigned counsel, petition this Court for review of the Order of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) titled: “Carbofuran; Order Denying FMC’s Objections and Requests for Hearing.” That Order was issued by EPA on October 30,2009, and is published in the Federal Register at 74 Fed. Reg. 59,608 (Nov. 18,2009).
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Petition for Review. — Utility Air Regulatory Group, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, November 20, 2009
Utility Air Regulatory Group hereby petitions this Court for review of the final action of respondent United States Environmental Protection Agency published at 74 Fed. Reg. 48153-56 (Sept. 22,2009), entitled, “Implementation of the New Source Review (NSR) Program for Particulate Matter Less Than 2.5 Micrometers (PM2.5); Final Rule To Stay the Grandfathering Provision for PM2.5.’’
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Petition for Review. — US Magnesium LLC, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, November 5, 2009
US Magnesium LLC (“USM”) hereby petitions this Court for review of the final rule of the United States Environmental Protection Agency adding the USM facility in Tooele County, Utah, to the CERCLA National Priorities List, set forth at Appendix B to the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan, 40 CF.R. Part 300. That rule was promulgated on November 4, 2009, and is set forth at 74 Fed. Reg. 57085 et seq.
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Oklahoma group fights Arkansas sewage plant. — Susan Hylton, Tulsa World, November 28, 2009
An Oklahoma environmental group has filed a petition to stop a new northwest Arkansas sewage plant that it believes will violate the federal Clean Water Act.

Save the Illinois River (STIR) maintains that the Northwest Arkansas Conservation Authority’s regional waste water treatment plant serving Bentonville and other small communities will be a new source of phosphorous released into the Illinois River basin, which is already impaired by phosphorous.
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Ohio school district sues over air pollution. — The Associated Press, November 28, 2009
A school district near Cincinnati is suing a plastics plant, accusing it of continuing to release chemicals in the air that exceed government safety standards. Three Rivers School District closed an elementary school across the street from the plant in 2005. The district says it has been unable to sell the building and is burdened by crowded classrooms. Students were shifted to two other elementary schools, and some courses are taught in cafeterias or storage areas. The lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages. The plant had been cited with several environmental violations. Terri Fitzpatrick, a spokeswoman for plastics maker Lanxess Corp., which previously owned the plant, says the company took steps to enhance environmental controls. The plant continues to operate under a joint agreement between Lanxess and Ineos Group.
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REGULATORY ACTIONS

EPA Orders Puerto Rico Police Department to Improve Handling and Disposal of Confiscated Fireworks. — EPA News Release, November 23, 2009
In an effort to enhance public safety and protect the environment, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reached an agreement with the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico to improve the way the Puerto Rico Police Department manages confiscated fireworks and other pyrotechnics after an inspection revealed violations at five police department facilities. The department must develop and implement a plan so its facilities comply with the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act’s (RCRA) requirements for the management of certain types of explosives and pyrotechnics.
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Proposed Rule: Protection of Stratospheric Ozone: The 2010 Critical Use Exemption From the Phaseout of Methyl Bromide. — Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Register, November 23, 2009
EPA is proposing uses that qualify for the 2010 critical use exemption and the amount of methyl bromide that may be produced, imported, or supplied from existing prephaseout inventory for those uses in 2010. EPA is taking action under the authority of the Clean Air Act to reflect a recent consensus decision taken by the Parties to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer at the Twentieth Meeting of the Parties. EPA is seeking comment on the list of critical uses and on EPA’s determination of the amounts of methyl bromide needed to satisfy those uses.
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Notice of Intent To Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement/Staff Assessment for the NextEra Ford Dry Lake Solar Power Plant, Riverside County, CA and Possible Land Use Plan Amendment. — Department of Interior, Federal Register, November 23, 2009
In compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), as amended, and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, as amended, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Palm Springs-South Coast Field Office, together with the California Energy Commission (CEC), intend to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and Staff Assessment (SA), which may also include an amendment to the California Desert Conservation Area (CDCA) Plan (1980, as amended), and by this notice are announcing the beginning of the scoping process to solicit public comments and identify issues.
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EPA Issues Rule to Reduce Water Pollution from Construction Sites. — EPA News Release, November 23, 2009
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today issued a final rule to help reduce water pollution from construction sites. The agency believes this rule, which takes effect in February 2010 and will be phased in over four years, will significantly improve the quality of water nationwide. Construction activities like clearing, excavating and grading significantly disturb soil and sediment. If that soil is not managed properly it can easily be washed off of the construction site during storms and pollute nearby water bodies. The final rule requires construction site owners and operators that disturb one or more acres to use best management practices to ensure that soil disturbed during construction activity does not pollute nearby water bodies.
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EPA Targets Construction-Site Pollution. — Judith Burns, The Wall Street Journal, November 23, 2009
The Environmental Protection Agency issued a final rule Monday aimed at reducing pollution from construction sites, saying that it will significantly improve the quality of water nationwide. The rule will be phased in over four years, starting in February, and when it is fully in effect, the EPA estimates there will be four billion fewer pounds of sediment discharged from construction sites each year. Nearly 82,000 home builders, commercial and industrial building contractors, and civil-engineering companies are expected to be covered by the rule, which the EPA estimates will impose about $953 million of annual costs
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Two pollutants eyed for more regulation. — Lee Bergquist, The Journal Sentinel, November 23, 2009
The threat of a potential lawsuit on Monday could set the stage for new regulations of a pair of pollutants that are responsible for algae blooms and poor drinking water. Lawyers for several environmental groups notified the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday of its intent to file suit against the agency for failing to protect state water from two forms of nutrient pollution – phosphorus and nitrogen. The source of the pollution is farm fields, manure, lawns and municipal wastewater treatment plants. Two law firms, the Chicago-based Environmental Law & Policy Center and Madison-based Midwest Environmental Advocates filed the notice with the EPA. The agency said in 1999 that would start to regulate the pollutants.
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EPA Weighs Going After Big Carbon Polluters. — Timothy Hurst, Reuters, November 23, 2009
With the Senate caught up in an intense health care debate, it is becoming increasingly likely that the upper chamber will not take up a climate bill for full consideration before the upcoming UN climate talks in Copenhagen, let alone before the end of the year. But the country’s biggest emitters of carbon dioxide will start tracking their emission levels on January 1 and begin reporting them to the United States Government if a rule currently being considered by the Environmental Protection Agency wins approval. Last week, the EPA held public hearings in Washington and Chicago on the proposed rule that would require 10,000 industrial sites and suppliers of petroleum products to submit the data beginning in 2011. The EPA has said the reporting would cover roughly 85 percent of the greenhouse-gas emissions in the United States linked to global warming.
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U.S. Navy agrees to consider more cleanup options at Kitsap County Superfund Site. — EPA News Release, November 23, 2009
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has required the U.S. Navy to consider more rigorous cleanup options for residential and shoreline property near the Jackson Park Housing Complex in Bremerton, Washington. The Navy is currently in the initial stages of a Superfund cleanup at the 232-acre property. “We believe that in an area where people live and play, and the Suquamish Tribe has substantial interests, more removal options must be evaluated,” said Lori Cohen, acting Director of EPA’s Superfund cleanup program in Seattle. “With this agreement in place, we’re satisfied with the Navy’s commitment to consider more removal alternatives for the subsurface munitions at the site.”
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Green Business and Indigenous Rights. — Pete Browne, The New York Times, November 24, 2009
A new report released over the weekend calls attention to the plight of indigenous communities affected by climate change mitigation measures. The study by Survival International, a London-based organization promoting the interests of tribal peoples, documents the impact of the biofuels industry, hydro-electric power, carbon-offsetting and forest conservation schemes on indigenous communities worldwide.
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EPA: Creosote testing poorly handled. — Terry L. Jones, Hattiesburg American, November 24, 2009
It seems like the city of Hattiesburg may not have gotten its money’s worth for an environmental study of a south Hattiesburg neighborhood. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, testing performed by APEX Environmental Consultants to determine whether the soil and groundwater of the residential neighborhood west of the railroad tracks that run along Eastside Avenue was still contaminated with creosote did not comply with its standards and protocols.
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Sewer upgrades help curb flooding problems. — Amy Hollon, Newark Advocate, November 24, 2009
If Newark gets more than an inch of rain, Jean George knows her home on Garfield Avenue is likely to be flooded. It is one of the largest repairs to Newark’s stormwater system since the department was established in 2006 to help the city meet the requirements of the Clean Water Act Phase II, which attempts to reduce pollutants discharged by the drainage system, and a fee was added to residents’ water bills. Recently, the city completed the first phase of construction, adding a 60-inch storm-sewer line from O’Bannon Avenue to Shawnee Run. That’s about a mile of a high-density plastic pipe, costing about $476,000.
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California Air Resources Board has released the Preliminary Draft Cap-and-Trade Regulation. — California Air Resources Board News Release, November 24, 2009
In December 2008, the Air Resources Board (ARB) adopted the AB 32 Scoping Plan, California’s blueprint for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Plan incorporates a range of measures to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in California, including the creation of a cap-and-trade program. As proposed, the California cap-and-trade program would include a stringent declining emissions cap. Emissions trading and the limited use of offsets would provide flexibility for covered entities to comply. If adopted, the cap-and-trade program would allow trading to ensure cost-effective emissions reductions and cover 85 percent of California’s GHG emissions. ARB is seeking your input on a preliminary draft regulation (PDR) covering a California cap-and-trade program for GHGs. This conceptual framework is the result of a great deal of public consultation, including 21 public meetings that were held to discuss and share ideas on the appropriate structure of the cap-and-trade program.
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Other Articles on the Same Topic:

California Preliminary Draft Cap-and-Trade Climate Regulation Praised. — PR Newswire, November 24, 2009
Environmental Defense Fund praised the California Air Resources Board (CARB) for its preliminary draft regulation (PDR) to reduce global warming pollution in the state. The PDR outlines key concepts the agency is considering as it designs a comprehensive cap-and-trade program. California’s groundbreaking clean energy law, The Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32), requires cutting global warming pollution 15 percent by 2020. The CARB board approved a plan last December calling for a cap-and-trade program that covers 85 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions in California by 2020.
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“Go West, Young Man” to See the Future of U.S. Carbon Cap and Trade. — Gerson Lehrman Group, November 25, 2009
A logjam in the U.S. Congress over health care reform is causing further delay in consideration of national climate change legislation. However, California regulators are moving full speed ahead on designing a program that could end up as the model for a federal system.
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Environmental Defense Fund Appreciates California’s Preliminary Draft Regulation. — Elsevier, November 25, 2009
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) received appreciation for its preliminary draft regulation (PDR) by the Environmental Defense Fund. The preliminary draft regulation helps in designing a cap-and-trade program, as simultaneous measures, to reduce pollution caused by global warming, and the measures are formulated by the Environmental Defense Fund. The Global Warming Solutions Act expects to reduce pollution caused by global warming to 15 percent by the year 2020.
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Notice of Public Comment Period: A Framework for Categorizing the Relative Vulnerability of Threatened and Endangered Species to Climate Change. — Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Register, November 25, 2009
EPA is announcing a 30-day public comment period for the draft document titled, ‘‘A Framework for Categorizing the Relative Vulnerability of Threatened and Endangered Species to Climate Change’’ (EPA/600/R–09/011). The document was prepared by the National Center for EnvironmentalAssessment within EPA’s Office of Research and Development. This draft document describes an evaluative framework that may be used to categorize the relative vulnerability of species to climate change.
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Notice of Final Order on Petition to Object to Clean Air Act Operating Permit: Clean Air Act Operating Permit Program; Petition for Objection to State Operating Permit for BP Products North America, Inc., Whiting Business Unit. — Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Register, November 25, 2009
This document announces that the Administrator of EPA has responded to a petition submitted by the Environmental Law and Policy Center, Hoosier Environmental Council, Natural Resources Defense Council, Save the Dunes, Sierra Club, Susan Eleuterio, and Tom Tsourlis (petitioners) asking EPA to object to an operating permit issued by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to the BP Products North America, Inc., Whiting Business Unit (Whiting). The Administrator granted the petition in part and denied it in part.
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Governor Requests Federal Superfund Designation for Former Smelter Site. — KFBB News Team, KFBB.com, November 24, 2009
After years of testing for contamination, one local community is one step closer to becoming a Superfund site. Governor Schweitzer announced on Tuesday that he has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to make the contaminated area of Black Eagle a federal Superfund site. Recent investigations show 375 residential yards in the area have tested positive for elevated levels of lead and arsenic. The EPA says the contamination probably came from the old refinery and smelter which closed back in 1980. In the letter, Schweitzer writes that the contaminated areas pose a long-term risk to the health of Montanans in the area.
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EPA proposes sulfur dioxide limits for first time since 1971. — Renee Schoof, McClatchy Newspapers, November 24, 2009
The Environmental Protection Agency is continuing its crackdown on coal pollution with a new plan to cut sulfur dioxide – a move that would clean up the air for millions of Americans and bring some relief to people who suffer from asthma and other respiratory diseases. The new rule, which was proposed this month, would be the first time since 1971 that the EPA has tightened controls on sulfur dioxide to protect the public health.
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Carbon Creep. — Brian Wingfield, Forbes, November 26, 2009
While corporate America works itself into a lather over the climate change bill, a far more insidious invasion is already under way: the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA doesn’t quite want to regulate carbon dioxide the way the Food & Drug Administration controls tobacco. As one of the agency’s officials says, it seeks to make regulation “a little more reasonable” by overseeing just certain kinds of polluters. Hmm. Are the EPA’s ambitions all that modest? And, however innocent its intentions, is it possible that judges will use the Clean Air Act to decree a far nastier crackdown?
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Survey on off-road equipment could influence regulation. — Cynthia Cory, California Farm Bureau Federation, November 25, 2009
Agricultural associations are asking their members to take 15-20 minutes before year-end to fill out a survey about their off-road equipment. This information will help set the stage for discussions with the California Air Resources Board as it begins work on a new rule that eventually will require gradually upgrading self-propelled agricultural field equipment of 25 horsepower or larger. Many Farm Bureau members filled out on-road truck surveys in 2008 and those responses were crucial in helping create flexible regulations for the agricultural community in the impending on-road diesel truck rule.
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EPA gets ready for a dustup. — Editorial, East Oregonian, November 24, 2009
If anyone needs further proof that the Environmental Protection Agency has jumped the tracks, it is the new efforts to control – dust. Dust? Surely the folks at the EPA have flipped their butterfly nets. Of all of the pollutants the federal government needs to keep an eye on, dust ranks right up there with pocket lint. Yet the EPA is hot on the trail of dust as another culprit that threatens the well-being of humankind.
One can almost see the white-gloved EPA dust patrol descending on every source of dust – presumably including teenagers’ rooms – to protect us from this menace.
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Other Articles on the Same Topic:

EPA’s tightened dust rule proposal worries cattlemen. — Jerry Lackey, Reporter-News, November 24, 2009
There are an unbelievable number of issues confronting not only the cattle business right now, but agriculture as a whole, says Colin Woodall, vice president of government affairs for National Cattlemen’s Beef Association in Washington, D.C., but one of the biggest concerns is the Environmental Protection Agency’s dust rule. “The EPA is proposing a tenfold reduction in the thresholds of what they call coarse particulate matter, which is EPA talk for agricultural dust,” Woodall told me in an interview at the Trade Talk conference during the 65th annual National Association of Farm Broadcasters convention in Kansas City, Mo., recently.
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Maine, Vt., step up regulation of polluted runoff. — Dave Gram, The Associated Press, November 24, 2009
Maine and Vermont are moving ahead of other states on regulating pollution in storm water running off roofs and parking lots, which often carries oil and other toxic substances. Vermont last week became the second state, following Maine, to change regulations designed to reduce runoff entering streams and other water bodies after heavy storms. The states already regulate several aspects of storm water, including those from new projects and construction sites. The new rules are expected to affect already existing commercial and residential developments, some in place for decades.
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Ex-Im Bank’s New Carbon Policies. — Partners Green, November 18, 2009
Green technologies will soon get greater export assistance. The U.S. Export-Import Bank is touting its newfound policy, although it is the direct result of a lawsuit filed more than six years ago by environmentalists and cities. At this point, the agency has provided few details as to how it would achieve its aims. It is now setting up a $250 million lending facility to back green exports as well as to improve the bank’s transparency in the tracking and reporting of carbon emissions from projects that it supports. The move, which is part of the settlement reached in February, is not enough, say environmental and civic activists, who add that it does nothing to limit the institution’s activities in the area of fossil fuels.
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TVA gets OK to dump more toxic coal waste into ash-polluted river. — Facing South, November 24, 2009
A dam collapse at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston power plant in eastern Tennessee last December sent a billion gallons of toxic coal sludge oozing over a nearby community and into the Emory and Clinch rivers, devastating the local environment. But despite the pollution burden already borne by neighbors and downstream residents because of that disaster, state regulators recently handed the TVA permission to dump even more toxic coal waste from the Kingston plant into the Clinch — a river the Environmental Protection Agency already classifies as impaired due to high levels of pollution.
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Panel told Bay cleanup needs more accountability: Critics say the bill gives states and the EPA too much power. — Karl Blankenship, Bay Journal, November 25, 2009
A U.S. Senate panel heard testimony in November that a strong law is needed to ensure that Bay cleanup efforts move forward, but critics say proposed legislation goes too far and would give states and the federal EPA “unprecedented” regulatory authority. At issue is a bill introduced by Sen. Ben Cardin, D-MD, which would require that all actions needed to control the nutrient and sediment pollution that foul the Bay’s water be implemented by 2025, and would give states and the EPA more authority to ensure the goal is met.
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Thousands comment on Monsanto’s planned Idaho mine. — The Associated Press, November 25, 2009
Monsanto employees, farm-state governors and an ex-U.S. Interior secretary urged speedy approval of an Idaho mine to supply an ingredient for Monsanto Co.’s Roundup weedkiller, while the Environmental Protection Agency wants additional pollution safeguards. Through November, the Bureau of Land Management got 6,834 comments on Monsanto’s Blackfoot Bridge phosphate mine near the Idaho-Wyoming border. The agency will review them, to see if a proposed mining plan merits changes. A decision could come by next summer.
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Public asked to review CAFO water permit. — Carol Ryan Dumas, Capital Press, November 27, 2009
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is asking the public to review a new proposed Clean Water Act permit that would affect concentrated animal feeding operations in Idaho. If enacted as proposed, the permit will regulate discharges to surface waters from many Idaho dairies and feedlots, including those on tribal lands. “There are still enough environmental and health concerns with these CAFOs that it remains a national priority,” said Nick Peak, EPA Region 10 CAFO coordinator in Boise. “This is a significant permit for us. We’re doing this work in all 50 states,” said Jim Werntz, director of EPA’s Idaho operations. While the permit is new to Idaho, the state is one of four where the permit isn’t yet authorized, Werntz said. The new National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit is required by the Clean Water Act for facilities that discharge or propose to discharge manure, litter or wastewater into streams, lakes or other surface waters.
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EPA plans hearing on land toxins. — Jason Houston, Moulton Advertiser, November 25, 2009
Landowners in Lawrence County will get another encounter with the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday, Dec. 1, as the agency plans a public hearing to update local residents on a local land toxin investigation. The session will be in the Moulton Recreation Center beginning at 6 p.m. with one-on-one sessions. A public hearing will follow at 7 p.m. EPA representatives last came to Moulton in June to discuss perfluorinated chemicals, an industrial by-product produced by Decatur plants that made its way onto farm land in Lawrence County through the applications of wastewater biosolids as fertilizer. An EPA spokesperson said the meeting will reveal test results from private drinking wells and fields and possibly tests from cattle that grazed in the contaminated fields.
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Bay City to begin water sampling for lead and copper content. — Shannon Murphy, Bay City Times, November 25, 2009
The Bay City Water Division staff will begin collecting water samples from area home next week. The samples will be analyzed for lead and copper content as part of an water testing program from the Environmental Protection Agency. The program requires samples from customers’ home plumbing to determine if lead or copper gets in the water from the plumbing or service lines.
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Web Tracking Tool Shows SO2 Reductions at Coal Plants. — Environmental Protection, November 26, 2009
New interactive tracking tools are available on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Web site to help the public follow nationwide changes in sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions from coal-fired power plants. Using interactive charts and Google Earth satellite maps, the public can now observe recent changes in SO2 emissions and other indicators at individual coal-fired power plants in the Acid Rain Program.
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EPA Renews Agriculture Charter. —Ohio Farmer, November 25, 2009
Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency say they will renew the charter of its independent agricultural advisory group, the Farm, Ranch, and Rural Communities Committee. This action reinforces EPA’s commitment to a strong partnership with the agriculture community to protect human health and the environment. Lawrence Elworth, agricultural counselor to the administrator, says EPA is dedicated to an open and constructive working relationship with the agriculture community, and this partnership provides a great opportunity for EPA to create a better understanding of the intersection of the environment, agriculture, and rural communities.
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Battle brewing over phosphorous rules. — Sean Ryan, The Daily Reporter, November 27, 2009
Environmental groups can expect a fight if they follow through with their threat to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to encourage new rules regulating phosphorous levels in water. Seven environmental organizations are trying to get the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources or EPA to mandate limits on the amount of phosphorous and nitrogen that leaks into streams from construction sites, factories, farms and sewage-treatment plants.
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EPA To Decide On Stricter Air Standards for Rural Areas. — John Sepulvado, Goergia Public Broadcasting, November 27, 2009
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is determining whether facilities in Floyd County are contributing to Metro Atlanta’s air pollution. The EPA’s conclusions could mean tougher air regulations for the rural area. Wind patterns from coal and paper plants near Rome could be moving pollution into metro Atlanta, according to a computer analysis conducted in 2008 by the EPA. And while the facilities responsible for most of the air pollution have made strides to improve their emissions, the EPA could require more restrictive caps for Floyd County. That’s if the agency decides to list Floyd as part of the Atlanta metro area not meeting air quality standards.
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BNSF cleanup of Whitefish River under way. — The Associated Press, November 27, 2009
The Environmental Protection Agency says efforts to remove contaminated sediment from the Whitefish River is taking longer than expected. The EPA ordered Burlington Northern Santa Fe to undertake the river restoration near a fueling facility upstream from Whitefish after finding diesel and other contaminants in the sediment. The EPA’s Jennifer Chergo said the cleanup, which was supposed to be completed by now, is expected to be finished by the end of December.
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Reports disagreed on buffer zone near refinery. — Brooke Adams, The Salt Lake Tribune, November 28, 2009
Seven years ago, as Woods Cross officials contemplated approving the Morningside Estates subdivision, their biggest concern was whether a wall would protect homes if a passing train ignited weeds along tracks at the edge of the Silver Eagle Refinery. The minutes from an August 2002 Planning Commission meeting refer to “some discussion” on other issues: “flare tower noise,” light from a burn-off flame and “the safety of the subdivision being located so close to a refinery.” But those concerns were brushed aside based on a safety study conducted by Psomas Engineering for the developer. That study, the minutes note, said homes could be built as close as 175 feet from the refinery without “any encroachment into the subdivision if a potential problem happened.”
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EPS, DNR pressure Fulton about wastewater. — Katherine Cummins, Fulton Sun, November 27, 2009
One year after saying it was satisfied with Fulton’s plans to deal with issues within its wastewater treatment system, the Environmental Protection Agency again is putting pressure on the city to clean up its act. During Tuesday night’s regular city council meeting, Director of Administration Bill Johnson told the council the city again is receiving notices from both the EPA and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources that it needs to resolve the issues with illegal sanitary sewer overflow out of the lift station at Fulton Reception and Diagnostic Center.
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Black Eagle Superfund cleanup decision a year away. — The Associated Press, November 27, 2009
A federal official says it will be late 2010 at the earliest before the Environmental Protection Agency could add a former copper processing operation near Great Falls to the Superfund environmental cleanup list. The former Anaconda Mineral Co. smelter and refinery in Black Eagle is contaminated with heavy metals from decades of copper smelting that ended in the 1980. Nearby, 375 homes have shown elevated levels of lead and arsenic.
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Dominic Calabro: New EPA water rules punish consumers, businesses. — Dominic Calabro, Fort Myers News Press, November 27, 2009
For the first time, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is poised to impose stringent new water quality regulations on the state of Florida that will cost our state and its businesses and families billions of dollars a year. These arbitrary regulations — which would apply to Florida but no other state — will impose additional economic hardship on virtually every segment of the Florida economy.
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IEPA to cleanup illegal dump site. — East Dubuque Register, November 27, 2009
Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) announced the agency is cleaning up of an illegal dump site located along Storybrook Road, Hanover Township, Jo Daviess County. The cleanup as to be completed by Nov. 17, weather permitting. Contractors worked to remove up to 100 cubic yards of waste from the site, including furniture, appliances, tires, garbage bags and lumber.
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EPA sets meetings on river cleanup projects. — Kathy Jessup, Post-Dispatch, November 23, 2009
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced two public meetings set for early December on plans for two Kalamazoo River cleanup projects. On Dec. 1, the EPA will host a 6:30 p.m. meeting in Plainwell to update the public on the latest developments at the Plainwell portion of the Kalamazoo River Superfund project, including planned cleanup activities. Federal officials will be available to meet with the public on an individual basis to hear comments and answer questions, according to an EPA news release. That session is slated at the Comfort Inn and Conference Center, 622 Allegan St., Plainwell.
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STATE & FEDERAL ENVIRONMENTAL LEGISLATION

Carbon Offsets Would Be a Boon to Farmers. — Tom Kenworthy, Center for American Progress, November 12, 2009
When it comes to legislation cutting carbon pollution, two Iowans steeped in agriculture policy take very different views of the likely impact on rural America. “The agriculture industry and rural communities will be some of the hardest-hit areas,” says Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA). “For American agriculture, the income benefits will outweigh costs, particularly over the long term,” says Tom Vilsack, Iowa’s former governor and now secretary of agriculture in the Obama administration. “For rural Americans, it will help create new economic opportunities and green-energy jobs.”
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Farmers Aren’t the Obstacle in the Global Warming Fight. — Jake Caldwell, Center for American Progress, November 18, 2009
No single part of the country is better positioned to both lead the country and reap the rewards of the new clean energy economy than rural America. But in a recent opinion piece, The Economist weekly newspaper proclaimed, “The Biggest Obstacle to a Climate-Change Bill is Rural America.” The essay inaccurately portrayed rural America as universally opposed to clean-energy and climate change legislation, and America’s farmers as frozen in their tracks, incapable of action for fear of high energy prices.
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Udall’s Good Samaritan water-cleanup bill drawing support. — Katie Redding, The Colorado Independent, November 23, 2009
U.S. Sen. Mark Udall’s new streamlined Good Samaritan legislation, designed to encourage volunteer water cleanup projects, may yet become law. It is the 11th piece of Good Samaritan legislation to be introduced in Congress in the last 15 years. Udall’s bill, however, is drawing more support and less opposition than the previous bills, all of which failed to gain traction on Capitol Hill. The bill by the Democratic senator would provide legal protection for non-profit and other groups who would clean up water contamination from the thousands of abandoned mines across Colorado.
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Inhofe to call for hearing into CRU, U.N. climate change research. — Tony Romm, The Hill, November 23, 2009
The publication of more than 1,000 private e-mails that climate change skeptics say proves the threat is exaggerated has prompted one key Republican senator to call for an investigation into their research. In an interview with The Washington Times on Monday, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) announced he would probe whether the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “cooked the science to make this thing look as if the science was settled, when all the time of course we knew it was not.”
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House approves extension of water discharge rule exemption for commercial fishing boats. — Daniel Walsh, The Press of Atlantic City, November 24, 2009
U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo and local fishing companies on Tuesday praised a possible extension of small fishing vessels’ exemption from new environmental regulations on ships’ water discharges at sea. LoBiondo, R-2nd, helped secure the House’s passage of a three-year delay of new environmental regulations covering the incidental discharge of various forms of water from fishing vessels less than 79 feet.
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U-MO system pres pans climate change bills; enviros irked. — Bill Lambrecht, Post-Dispatch, November 23, 2009
In the climate change battle in Washington pitting region against region, the often skeptical Midwest has acquired a new ally: University of Missouri System President Gary Forsee. In a letter written to Missourians in Congress, Forsee declared that the University of Missouri opposes cap-and-trade legislation that has passed the House and a Senate committee because of projections of higher electricity costs.
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Udall beetle bill looks to boost biofuel, biopower solutions. — David O. Williams, The Colorado Independent, November 24, 2009
Backers of biofuel and biopower see the millions of lodgepole pine trees killed by the Rocky Mountain bark beetle epidemic as a source of carbon-neutral power. Their efforts to turn the devastation into usable energy may take off if Congress passes a bill floated by Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Udall late last week. Co-sponsored by Republican U.S. Sen. James Risch of Idaho — whose state also has been hit hard by the rice-sized bugs — the National Forest Insect and Disease Emergency Act would provide tax and other incentives for companies harvesting beetle-killed dead trees for biofuel or biopower.
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U.S. Unlikely to Use the Ethanol Congress Ordered. — Matthew Wald, The New York Times, November 26, 2009
Two years ago, Congress ordered the nation’s gasoline refiners to do something that is turning out to be mathematically impossible. To please the farm lobby and to help wean the nation off oil, Congress mandated that refiners blend a rising volume of ethanol and other biofuels into gasoline. They are supposed to use at least 15 billion gallons of biofuels by 2012, up from less than seven billion gallons in 2007. But nobody at the time counted on fuel demand falling in the United States, which is what has happened during the recession. And that decline could well continue, as cars become more efficient under other recent government mandates.At the maximum allowable blend, in which gasoline at the pump contains 10 percent ethanol, updated projections suggest that the country is unlikely to be able to use all the ethanol that Congress has ordered up. So something has to give.
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Brasher: EPA to rule this week on ethanol limit for gas. — Philip Brasher, Des Moines Register, November 29, 2009
The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to rule this week whether more ethanol can go into the gasoline used for everything from automobiles to boats and snowblowers.
But that doesn’t mean higher-proof gasoline is headed for service stations any time soon. Even if the agency agrees to allow higher levels of ethanol in gas – and that is no given – it’s not clear when the higher-proof fuel would reach the market. Refiners are saying they won’t put more ethanol into their gasoline unless Congress gives them protection from potential lawsuits from motorists or consumers who claim the ethanol hurt their engines.
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Lawmakers want to lift pesticide ban to battle bedbug blast; Ohio, Michigan among hardbitten. — Emily Lawler, Great Lakes Echo, November 28, 2009
Forget letting the bedbugs bite – even having them in your home is a danger. The entire United States is dealing with a resurgence of these pesky parasites, which feed on human blood. “They can cause red itchy lesions,” said Kim Signs, a zoonotic disease epidemiologist with Michigan’s Department of Community Health. She studies diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans. It’s especially bad in neighboring Ohio, where a bedbug-targeting task force has formed and legislators are calling for the Environmental Protection Agency to reverse a federal ban on a pesticide to help fight the bugs.
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Texas gov leads GOP fight against climate bill. — John McFarland, The Associated Press, November 27, 2009
While the U.S. Senate considers a climate bill aiming to dramatically slash air pollution linked to global warming, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and other Republican leaders in the state that leads the nation in greenhouse gas production are watching closely — and objecting loudly. Perry, backed by powerful business and industry groups, for months has been denouncing the measure, saying it would cripple the vibrant Texas economy and the heavy-polluting oil, gas and chemical industries it depends on. The governor plans to keep up his campaign against legislation he claims would lead to massive job cuts, industries fleeing overseas and more expensive energy for everyone.
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OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS

Lose the Fat: Targeting Grease to Curtail Sewer Overflows. — Dr. Joel Ducoste, North Carolina State University Newsroom, November 23, 2009
Sewer overflows are a nasty business, posing dangers to human health and the environment. North Carolina State University is launching a new project with funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that targets the fat and grease that contribute to millions of overflows every year, and will give urban planners new tools to further reduce the risk of sewage spills.
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Outdated sewage systems violating laws. — UPI, November 23, 2009
Outdated municipal sewage systems across the United States are violating the law by allowing human and industrial waste to flow into waterways, data indicate. An analysis of environmental data by The New York Times found in the last three years alone, more than 9,400 of the nation’s 25,000 sewage systems have reported violating the Clean Water Act of 1972 by dumping human waste, chemicals and other hazardous materials into rivers and lakes, the newspaper reported Monday.
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As Sewers Fill, Waste Poisons Waterways. — Charles Duhigg, The New York Times, November 22, 2009
It was drizzling lightly in late October when the midnight shift started at the Owls Head Water Pollution Control Plant, where much of Brooklyn’s sewage is treated. A few miles away, people were walking home without umbrellas from late dinners. But at Owls Head, a swimming pool’s worth of sewage and wastewater was soon rushing in every second. Warning horns began to blare. A little after 1 a.m., with a harder rain falling, Owls Head reached its capacity and workers started shutting the intake gates. That caused a rising tide throughout Brooklyn’s sewers, and untreated feces and industrial waste started spilling from emergency relief valves into the Upper New York Bay and Gowanus Canal.
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Energy and the Environment. — Wall Street Journal, November 23, 2009
After decades of drifting, the U.S. is moving toward a more-coherent energy policy. For the energy industry, that is both a boon and a threat. The broad goals of any new legislation and regulation are clear enough: to cushion the volatility of energy prices and curb greenhouse-gas emissions. But the details are fuzzy, and those details will determine whom the energy transformation helps and hurts. Figuring that federal limits on greenhouse-gas emissions are inevitable, for instance, the industry wants the rules to come from Congress rather than from the Environmental Protection Agency. The reason: It thinks it can lobby Congress to cushion the blow more easily than it can lobby the EPA.
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The Environmental Impact Of The Fashion Industry. — EarthTalk, The Good Human, November 22, 2009
According to the non-profit Earth Pledge, today some 8,000 synthetic chemicals are used throughout the world to turn raw materials into textiles. Domestically, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that one-quarter of all pesticides used nationwide go toward growing cotton, primarily for the clothing industry. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers many domestic textile manufacturing facilities to be hazardous waste generators; and lax standards and enforcement in developing countries, where the majority of textiles are produced, means that untold amounts of pollution are likely being deposited into local soils and waterways in regions that can hardly stand further environmental insult.
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American Bonanza Gold Corp.: Copperstone Mine Plan of Operations Accepted by the BLM. — CNN Money.com, November 23, 2009
American Bonanza Gold Corp. (TSX: BZA)(OTCBB: ABGFF)(FRANKFURT: AB2) (“Bonanza”) is pleased to announce that the United States Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) has accepted as complete the Copperstone Mining Plan of Operations and started the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) process for the 100% owned Copperstone Gold Project in Arizona. The BLM will be the lead governmental agency with oversight of the permitting for Bonanza’s mining operations. The NEPA process will document and assess cultural and environmental matters at the Copperstone Mine. No NEPA issues are anticipated as the project is totally within the existing area of surface disturbance with no new disturbance planned or expected.
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Climate Change Puts Trillions of Dollars in Assets at Risk Along U.S. Coasts. — eNews Park Forest, November 23, 2009
World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the leading insurer Allianz SE released a report today warning that sea level rise could dramatically increase risks to buildings, transportation infrastructure and other assets exposed to severe storm surges in coastal areas of the U.S. The study estimates that current assets at risk to a 1-in-100-year storm surge amount to $1.4 trillion. A mid-century global sea level rise of 0.5 meters (20 inches), with an additional 0.15 meter (6 inches) localized rise along the northeast U.S. coast, could jeopardize assets worth close to $7.4 trillion.
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U. professor provides alternative to climate change. — Wendy Leonard, Deseret News, November 23, 2009
Although he continues to ride a bike or bus to work, line-dry family clothing and use a push lawn mower, University of Utah professor Tim Garrett believes humans can’t really affect climate change. Instead, he says the earth’s course will run along a “predetermined trajectory.” He doesn’t see the major cause of global warming being stabilized any other way than if the increasing flow of carbon-dioxide emissions ultimately collapses the world’s economy or society builds the equivalent of one new nuclear power plant each day. Nuclear plants, which produce one gigawatt of continuous power, would be necessary to compensate for the increasing growth in energy consumption around the world, said Garrett, an associate professor of atmospheric sciences at the U.
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Climate change quickens, seas feared up 2 metres. — Alister Doyle, Reuters, November 24, 2009
Global warming is happening faster than expected and at worst could raise sea levels by up to 2 metres (6-1/2 ft) by 2100, a group of scientists said on Tuesday in a warning to next month’s U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen. In what they called a “Copenhagen Diagnosis”, updating findings in a broader 2007 U.N. climate report, 26 experts urged action to cap rising world greenhouse gas emissions by 2015 or 2020 to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
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Toxic cleanup spurs walleye resurgence. — Jeff Gillies, Capital News Services, November 24, 2009
Walleye swimming in Michigan’s largest watershed are 80 percent less contaminated with PCBs than they were in 1997, according to a study published recently in the Journal of Great Lakes Research. PCBs are toxic, potentially cancer-causing chemicals that were used in electrical insulators, hydraulic equipment and some paints. The U.S. and many other countries banned PCB production in the 1970s and 1980s. PCB levels in Saginaw Bay walleye have dropped 80 percent since 1997, said study author Chuck Madenjian, a fishery biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Great Lakes Science Center. He credits the drop to a dredging project in 2000 and 2001 that pulled more than 340,000 cubic yards of polluted sediment out of the Saginaw River, the bay’s main tributary.
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Nuclear power regains support. — Anthony Faiola, Prosperity Agenda, November 24, 2009
Nuclear power — long considered environmentally hazardous — is emerging as perhaps the world’s most unlikely weapon against climate change, with the backing of even some green activists who once campaigned against it. It has been 13 years since the last new nuclear power plant opened in the United States. But around the world, nations under pressure to reduce the production of climate-warming gases are turning to low-emission nuclear energy as never before. The Obama administration and leading Democrats, in an effort to win greater support for climate change legislation, are eyeing federal tax incentives and loan guarantees to fund a new crop of nuclear power plants across the United States that could eventually help drive down carbon emissions.
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Sustainable Corn Production Supports Advanced Biofuel Feedstocks. — Ann Perry, USDA Agricultural Research Service, November 24, 2009
Researchers worldwide are trying to economically convert cellulosic biomass such as corn stover into “cellulosic ethanol.” But Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have found that it might be more cost-effective, energy-efficient and environmentally sustainable to use corn stover for generating an energy-rich oil called bio-oil and for making biochar to enrich soils and sequester carbon. Stover is made up of the leaves, husks, cobs and stalks of the corn plant, and could provide an abundant source of feedstock for cellulosic ethanol production after the grain is harvested. But removing stover from the field would leave soil more vulnerable to erosion, deplete plant nutrients and accelerate the loss of soil organic matter.
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GRAY: Montreal Protocol a climate change model. — C. Boyden Gray, The Washington Times, November 24, 2009
What international agreement produced 10 times the climate benefits of Kyoto and could produce several times more greenhouse-gas reductions than any post-2012 climate agreement? The answer: the Montreal Protocol, which former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan described as “perhaps the most successful international agreement to date.” Because a new climate agreement is unlikely to emerge in Copenhagen in December, it’s time to look for possible interim alternative ideas in the Montreal Protocol, which supporters call the best-kept secret in the war against climate change.
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President Obama, Prime Minister Singh Pledge Increased Cooperation on Environmental, Climate Initiatives. — EPA News Release, November 25, 2009
President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, as part of his first state visit, jointly launched a new U.S.-India Green Partnership aimed at strengthening cooperation between the two nations on a wide range of environment and climate initiatives. Among these initiatives is the creation of an Indian National Environmental Protection Authority (NEPA), intended to enhance the authority of Indian environmental agencies, improve public information and transparency, demonstrate progress in environmental compliance and enforcement, and ultimately result in improved environmental quality for all Indian citizens.
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US and India pledge common action on climate change. — Suzanne Goldenberg and Jonathan Watts, The Guardian, November 24, 2009
America and India today pledged common action to fight climate change and to build a new global clean energy economy, claiming the new “green partnership” between two of the world’s biggest emitters would help produce a strong political deal at next month’s summit in Copenhagen. Barack Obama and visiting Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, both committed to “significant mitigation actions”, ie reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
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Environmental group says Indiana power plants ranked 4th dirtiest in US; Texas tops list. — Charles Wilson, Associated Press, November 24, 2009
Coal-hungry Indiana ranks fourth in the nation for carbon dioxide emissions from mostly aging power plants that contribute to global warming, an environmental group said Tuesday. The report released by Washington, D.C.-based Environment America ranked Indiana behind Texas, Ohio and Florida. Pennsylvania was fifth. The study was based on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data for 2007, the latest year for which final data were available. Power plants in Texas put out nearly twice the amount of carbon dioxide as those in Ohio and Florida, the group said.
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Report: Iowa’s coal-powered energy plants are among oldest in nation. — The Associated Press, November 24, 2009
A new report by Environment Iowa indicates the state has some of the oldest coal-fired energy plants in the nation. According to the advocacy group, of the nearly 1,200 coal plants in the United States included in the report, Iowa has three among the oldest 100 and 16 among the oldest 500. One of 100 dirtiest nationally, the Walter Scott Jr. Energy Center in Council Bluffs, is also located in Iowa. The plant reportedly emitted nearly 9.7 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2007.
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12-state e-conference Dec. 1 to promote agriculture’s role in energy production. — University of Missuori Cooperative Media Group Release, November 25, 2009
Universities from 12 Midwestern states will host a virtual conference Dec. 1 aimed at promoting agriculture’s role in energy production. “Growing the Bioeconomy: Solutions for Sustainability” will include live video presentations from several host sites and in-person sessions featuring local speakers. The University of Missouri will co-host the conference at the Bradford Research and Extension Center, just east of Columbia.
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Meet Illinois‘ Biggest Polluters. — Angela Caputo, Progress Illinois, November 25, 2009
The folks at Environment Illinois have been doing yeoman’s work documenting exactly why federal climate change legislation is an urgent priority. Yesterday, they released yet another report detailing a major source of pollution in the Prairie State: coal-fired power plants. It’s no coincidence that Illinois ranks sixth nationally for its level of carbon dioxide pollutants and is home to 21 of the oldest coal-powered plants in the country. After combing through some new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data, the EI researchers found that power plants built three or more decades ago were responsible for a whopping 73 percent of all global warming pollutants in 2007 (the most recent data set available). In a nutshell, EI writes, “older means dirtier.”
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Climate change to hit water-scarce Arab world hard. — Dina Zayed, Reuters, November 25, 2009
Climate change is likely to hit the water-starved Arab world harder than many other parts of the globe and threatens to slash agricultural output in the area, U.N. and Arab League officials said.
Arab governments have shown more awareness of the issue but need to cooperate further to improve research and policies, they said. “Climate change will be critical for the Arab world because this region in particular already suffers from poverty, widespread aridity, water scarcity and social marginalisation,” said Sima Bahous, Deputy Secretary General for Social Development in the Arab League.
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Avista Joins Climate-Change Push. — DFO, The Spokesman Review, November 25, 2009
Avista Corp., which gets half its energy from hydropower dams, has joined other clean-energy providers, retailer Gap Inc. and Colorado resort operator Aspen Skiing Co. to form a new lobbying group for federal climate-change legislation. Avista is one of the 20 founding members of American Businesses for Clean Energy, which started up earlier this month. The group’s goal is to unite diverse business interests to support cap-and-trade legislation, which would limit carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases.
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Wetlands parcel owner says escrow on swap must close by Dec. 31. — Joe Segura, Long Beach Press-Telegram, November 23, 2009
The attorney for Los Cerritos Wetlands owner Tom Dean has notified the city that escrow on a land-swap deal for 37 acres needs to be closed by Dec. 31. In two letters, including one dated Monday, attorney Kenneth A. Ehrlich attests that the issues of contaminations at the wetlands are being addressed in good faith. Dean’s company (LCW Partners), according to Ehrlich, “will continue to move as fast as allowed by EPA (the Environmental Protection Agency) to assess and remediate any and all existing PCB contamination at the property.”
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Obama offers fixed targets for US emissions cuts. — Jim Giles, New Scientist, November 25, 2009
President Barack Obama has given a major boost to next month’s UN climate change negotiations in Copenhagen by offering firm targets for cuts in US greenhouse gas emissions. The move, announced today, has been widely welcomed by climate change campaigners. But although they may seem generous, the proposed targets are in fact far from what developing nations and climate scientists have called for. Obama said the US was prepared to cut its emissions of greenhouse gases by 17 per cent by 2020 and by 83 per cent by 2050 “in the context of an overall deal in Copenhagen that includes robust mitigation contributions from China and the other emerging economies”.
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Other Articles on the Same Topic:

Boxer Statement on Obama Administration’s Announcement on Copenhagen and Targets for Emissions Reductions. — U.S. Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works, November 25, 2009
oday, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, released the following statement regarding the Obama administration’s announcement that President Obama will attend the international negotiations in Copenhagen next month, and that the President is proposing an emissions reduction target for the United States in the range of 17 percent below 2005 levels in 2020.
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Obama Confirms Copenhagen Stop. — Andrew C. Revkin, The New York Times, November 25, 2009
President Obama ended speculation on whether he would visit Copenhagen to help in talks on a new climate treaty with an announcement describing his plan to stop at the talks on Dec. 9 with a pledged near-term reduction in emissions, the day before he receives the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. Clearly, the political risk of attending the talks was greatly reduced by the recent announcement, during an Asian summit, that the talks would not produce a legally binding deal. There’s little chance he could be blamed for failure, and every chance he could be credited for any breakthroughs. The announcement follows word that the United States will also unveil a near-term target for emissions reductions. The news release below lays out a list of activities planned by the United States during the talks: [UPDATE 11/26: China has anted up a Copenhagen target slowing growth in emissions relative to growth in the economy.]
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Climate change: President Barack Obama proposes 17% cut in U.S. carbon emissions, will attend Copenhagen climate talks. — Jim Tankersley, Chicago Tribune, November 26, 2009
President Barack Obama will attend international climate negotiations in Copenhagen next month and is promising sizable reductions of U.S. carbon emissions, the White House announced Wednesday, breathing new life into hopes for a global agreement on heat-trapping greenhouse gases. The United States will reduce its emissions of the gases scientists blame for global warming “in the range of” 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, administration officials said, giving the world the clearest blueprint yet of U.S. strategies to cut back. The U.S. pledge and Obama’s plans to attend the meeting buoyed environmentalists and world leaders, adding crucial impetus to a gathering that many worried was headed toward failure.
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Agencies call for more aid to fight climate change. — Tom Odula, The Associated Press, November 25, 2009
A global network of aid agencies on Wednesday called on governments to do more to reduce the impact natural disasters caused by climate change will have on poor countries. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said governments can do this by tackling food shortages, supplying clean water and increasing awareness among citizens about how to cope with disasters.
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James Hansen: Climate Change Evidence ‘Overwhelming,’ Hacked E-mails ‘Indicate Poor Judgement’. — Kate Dailey, Newsweek, November 25, 2009
Earlier this week we published an interview Sharon Begley conducted with noted climate-change scientist James Hansen about his new book, Storms of My Grandchildren; the upcoming climate-change summit in Copenhagen; and the challenges presented to our ecosystem in the face of mounting evidence about the dangers of CO₂ emissions. The interview, however, was conducted last week—well before news of the hacked climate-change e-mails was made public. Those e-mails, from some leading voices on climate change, suggest that researchers conspired to manipulate data so that evidence opposing climate change was minimized, leading some to suspect a larger conspiracy.
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Browner Shrugs Off Hot Debate on Climate Change Emails. — Jonathan Weisman, The Wall Street Journal, November 25, 2009
White House energy and environment czar Carol Browner tried Wednesday to shrug off the swirling controversy over purloined British emails suggesting collusion on the part of climate scientists trying to stoke up fears of global warming. She hadn’t read them, she said, and besides, only a few have come to light – second hand. But with President Barack Obama now committing to attend the international climate change summit in Copenhagen next month, Browner couldn’t escape the debate that easily. The emails from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia are being used by climate change skeptics to castigate the very purpose of the United Nations summit.
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A false lesson on climate change. — David Frum, The Hill, November 26, 2009
Scientists—even brilliant ones—are not better than other people. They are at least as prone to vanity, malice, groupthink, charlatanism, and outright dishonesty as those in any other line of work. Happily, science is bigger than the scientists. Nobody would respond to Watson’s bad behavior by saying, “See—that proves that DNA does not exist!” Yet that is just the kind of debate we are having in the wake of the exposure of hundreds of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. These e-mails depict the scientists of the CRU in the worst possible light: manipulating data to reach preordained conclusions, disparaging critics, stonewalling legitimate requests for information.
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Climategate and Environmental Policy Options. — Steven M. Taber,News Release, November 26, 2009
Last week, hackers attacked the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of East Anglia University in the United Kingdom and downloaded 100s of megabytes of e-mails. Contained in the purloined e-mails are “scandalous” information about how scientists stole information from each other, and manipulated data to get desired results. Fox News has made a big deal about this. Sen. Inhofe has called for an investigation into whether any of the experts who appeared before the Senate knew about the “vast misrepresentation and conspiracy” to ruin the American economy. But what really does “Climategate” tell us about the validity of Climate Change? Not much.
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Climate change cover-up? You better believe it. — David Biello, Scientific American, November 24, 2009
Was Sen. James Inhofe right when he declared 2009 the year of the climate contrarian? A slew of emails stolen from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit highlight definite character flaws among some climate scientists—including an embarrassing attempt to delete emails that discussed the most recent report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—while also exposing what looks like a failure of scientists to acknowledge a halt to global warming in the past decade. Sadly for the potential fate of human civilization, rumors of the demise of climate change have been much exaggerated. The past decade recorded nine of the warmest years in recent history as well as the rapid dwindling of Arctic sea ice, surely the result of imminent global cooling if climate change contrarians are to be believed. After all, one of the most “damaging” emails in question from Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., is actually mourning the paucity of Earth observation systems and data in the past decade, such as satellites (gutted by a lack of funding and launch miscues in recent years) to monitor climate change in the midst of natural variability.
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INTERVIEW-Climate science untarnished by hacked emails-IPCC. — Gerard Wynn, Reuters, November 25, 2009
The head of the U.N.’s panel of climate experts rejected accusations of bias on Thursday, saying a “Climategate” row in no way undermined evidence that humans are to blame for global warming. Climate change sceptics have seized on a series of e-mails written by specialists in the field, accusing them of colluding to suppress data which might have undermined their arguments. The e-mails, some written as long as 13 years ago, were stolen from a British university by unknown hackers and spread rapidly across the Internet. But Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), stood by his panel’s 2007 findings, called the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). “This private communication in no way damages the credibility of the AR4 findings,” he told Reuters in an email exchange.
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As Copenhagen summit nears, ‘Climategate’ dogs global warming debate. — Patrik Jonsson, Christian Science Monitor, November 28, 2009
As major Western powers rush to break a deadlock over a new global emissions treaty ahead of the Copenhagen climate summit in 10 days, world leaders face another problem: Waning public concern over man-made global warming. The leak of embarrassing, and in some cases troubling, emails from a major global climate center, East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU), has given fuel to skeptics of human-caused global warming, putting even more pressure on leaders to get a deal (or at least the beginnings of one) in Copenhagen. Among the ideas floated to break a deadlock: A satellite system by which nations could be monitored for their carbon dioxide emissions. Also, a $10 billion global climate fund that would subsidize efforts by poorer nations to cut carbon emissions.
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BLOGS

Cali Unleashes Info Galore on Emissions, Incentives for Green Car Geeks. —Josie Garthwaite, Earth2Tech, November 20, 2009
“Oil is finite, but information is infinite,” Google CEO Eric Schmidt said a year ago in a talk for the New America Foundation. Fortunately, we have online tools to organize and manage that information, sometimes in the interest of reducing oil consumption, as well as emissions and fuel expenses for drivers. The California Air Resources Board has just launched such a web-based tool, with its revamped DriveClean Buying Guide. Announced Thursday afternoon, the web site allows users to compare vehicles based on Global Warming and Smog scores — snapshots of how a car’s fuel consumption, carbon-equivalent emissions and contribution to smog (through production of certain volatile organic compounds) compares to all other vehicles in that model year. By state law, these scores now appear on an Environmental Performance label displayed in the window of cars manufactured since January 2009 and brought to market in California. Now they’re also available online in a ranking system similar to the side-by-side comparison tools offered by the federal FuelEconomy.gov site and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Vehicle Guide, but with a couple key differences, including increased emphasis on vehicles’ contribution to climate change (relative to FuelEconomy.gov, at least), more integration of rebate an incentive info and a more slick interface.
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California Air Resources Board Issues Its Preliminary Draft Cap-And-Trade Regulations. — Steven M. Taber, Environmental Law and Climate Change Law Blog, November 24, 2009
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has released the Preliminary Draft Cap-And-Trade Regulation and announced a December 14, 2009 Public meeting to discuss the Preliminary Draft Regulation. In December 2008, CARB adopted the AB 32 Scoping Plan. The Plan incorporates a range of measures to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in California, including the creation of a cap-and-trade program. As proposed, the California cap-and-trade program would include a stringent declining emissions cap. Emissions trading and the limited use of offsets would provide flexibility for covered entities to comply. If adopted, the cap-and-trade program would allow trading to ensure cost-effective emissions reductions and cover 85 percent of California’s GHG emissions.
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Climate change too real. — The Reporter, November 27, 2009
I wasn’t surprised to see a letter (“Global warming scam,” Nov. 14) claim that global warming is a hoax. What I read sounded very similar to the things I’ve seen or heard on ultra conservative talk radio and TV, which have guests on their programs who are out to make a name for themselves and a little money while rebuking well-known facts. The term “climate change” was first used to describe global warming by the fossil fuel industry (oil and coal and their by-products), which is the major contributor to the pollution problem we are all facing today. It sounded less threatening than “global warming.”
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Thanks

joeldskene — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:26:02 +0000

Two and a half months after our car completely died, we have settled on getting one. A specific one.

It’s a 2001 Hyundai Elantra GT. It looks like this except silver. And it’s the first time in my life I’ll own that I actually like. It drives great, looks great, it’s a stick shift, good gas mileage, comfortable, aaaaaaaaaand we’re getting an amazing deal on it.

While it’s going to be very nice to have a car again, I can’t quite get over how easy day to day life has been without one. Of course there have been times that we wanted to go out of town, pick up giant bags of dog food, or move music equipment that have proven difficult with the bus. But overall it’s been doable.

Speaking of going out of town, Liz and I were able to see my family and some old friends last week in Jackson for Thanksgiving. Since childhood this has been my favorite holiday. Mainly because the focus seems to be less on presents, religion, or some other outside force. It is simply about people getting together and being thankful for each other. I know the holiday’s origins are far less pure, but I like what it’s become now.

Our family, like many others has the tradition of each person saying what he or she is thankful for at the dinner table. Because I work with homeless people five days a week, this year I had a slightly different perspective on this question. I have become thankful for things I hadn’t thought of before. I’m thankful that I have people I can turn to when times are hard, I’m thankful that I was never abused as a child, I’m thankful that I’m not sitting in a tent right now. And I’m thankful for my job and the way it makes me examine my own life.

And I’m thankful we’re getting a car.

Motivational Quote: Opportunity

Richard Elmes — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:14:31 +0000

“Opportunity dances with those who are already on the dance floor.” - H. Jackson Brown J

Smooth Criminal [Moonwalker Cut] [HD] - Michael Jackson

hooblerbigt — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 09:57:36 +0000

centerpiece in Jackson’s short film Moonwalker, featuring Ryan Sweeney. Smooth Criminal was a song that almost didn’t make it into the Bad album. With the final decision to include the song, Jackson originally decided to make the music video a western-styled short film. However, he later decided to change the style into a 1930s nightclub style. Smooth Criminal was performed live during the second leg of Jackson’s 1987-88 Bad World Tour. The performance featured a dance routine modelled …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-WVpQ0ZG8Q&hl=en

Friends Link : aurorablog http://chelseyeve.changjy.com/ http://twitter.com/pacapao http://angermanagementblog.co.cc/

Cigar Mile Day 2009: The Three F's

Sarah K. Andrew — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:56:55 +0000

For many, Thanksgiving means the Three F’s: food, family, and football. To this, I add Fotography. And Fillies. And many Furlongs of graded stakes action.

Cigar Mile Day is generally the last hurrah of the season for New York racing fans. This time of year, the weather gets chilly, racing at Aqueduct moves to the inner dirt course, and the holidays approach.

I brought my friend Lisa to the track and she did a great job as my assistant. She also learned quite a bit about the light at the track and how to get the proper exposure for bright sun and the shade of the grandstand.

Before you know it, Derby Fever will be upon us. This Saturday gave racing fans a little more information about their favorite two-year-olds.

Launch N Relaunch broke his maiden with ease.

Buddy’s Saint (center) won the Remsen handily.

Although they did not take a trip to the winner’s circle, there were many other nice colts at the Big A that day, including Imaging:

Highveldt Storm:

Lentenor, full brother of Barbaro. Barbaro’s Kentucky Derby was one of my favorite races of the decade, but I never got to see the great colt in person so it was a treat to see his younger brother carrying on the legacy.

But the day was not all about the colts. Stardom Bound had an eventful return from her layoff. Peach Brew stumbled out of the gate at the start of the Gazelle- if you view the video (below), you can see that it happened in the blink of an eye, but the photo shows how much it can affect a horse’s game.

The marquee race of the day was the Hill ‘n’ Dale Cigar Mile Handicap. Kodiak Kowboy won the race and a real shot at this year’s Eclipse Award for Champion Sprinter.

Furlongs and Furlongs of Fun for this Fotographer. Hope you had a good weekend as well.

First KTM Ride

Nickie Knight — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:54:22 +0000

Jackson took the KTM out over Thanksgiving break 3 times and tore up the track. Here is a video of his first ride on the new bike.

ROBERT PATTINSON + EMS CHARITY KISS = DEPRESSION AWARENESS & 1ST KISS

comingoutofthedark — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 02:35:59 +0000

One in five people are significantly affected by mental illness and EmsCharityKiss, (The Crazy Idea!

The Offer: Greatness The Price: 927 Words

fersureriot — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:43:45 +0000

Okay, so…I lied. I wasn’t strong enough to pull an all-nighter last night. I know, I know. So sue me.

When it came down to making the final decision, I sat back and really, truly considered sitting and writing straight through until dawn. But I began to realize that my task was more daunting than I had originally anticipated, as my characters have started swinging way out of my control, getting more and more independent by the second.

It’s overwhelming, really, but I refuse to stop. I am so close to 50,000 I can literally taste it. And once I hit that big 50K, there is an offer that I just can not refuse.

NaNoWriMo has teamed up with CreateSpace, a self-publishing website, offering winners of NaNo ‘09 the chance to get a free published copy of their novels.

When I say free published copy, I mean full-on paperback book containing the same words that we creative people have strived to get written in this past month. Can I even BEGIN to tell you how exciting that is?? Probably not. It’s fantastic, it’s fierce, it’s the most amazing offer I’ve ever seen given for free.

And I will take advantage of it. I have until June 2010 to finish The Syndicate (as its temporary title is at the moment) and edit the living shit out of it. Is it achievable? Yes. Can I do it? Probably. Will I still have my sanity at the end of it all?

Well, I might be able to salvage a fraction of it. <– A fraction which I am sure to lose come next November when I tackle this endeavor all over again.

I promise you this time: the next blog will be the great announcement of victory.

WORD COUNT: 49,073

Just Call His Name - He'll Be There

aplogansr — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:43:10 +0000

No more cheesy jingles
Or chips with my lunch, not even Pringles
Instead for you, a strong admonition
Worship God of your own volition
It’s there your mission becomes crystal clear
Where no other voice but His you hear
Seek His face, see His power
Day or night, no matter the hour
Call His Name in your dark despair
Don’t you worry, He’ll be there.

www.aplogansr.com

Critical Application: Stitching Birkerts

Sean Meehan — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:15:25 +0000

Critical Application: Stitching Birkerts into our thinking and writing.

Birkerts concludes The Gutenberg Elegies focusing on an opposition between “the solitary self” and “the collective.” For Birkerts, a true self is solitary and a true sense of self exists only in solitude; this condition of selfhood is cultivated best through the pages and linear lines of books. Birkerts sets against this condition of solitary selfhood the “condition of connectedness” that he associates with what he terms “the ever-expanding electronic web.” “They are not only extensions of the senses,” he argues about the technological improvements of the electronic age in his “Coda,” “they are extensions of the senses that put us in touch with the extended senses of others.” In other words, the problem is not so much that we are, in the age of overwhelming information, overloading our senses by extending their range and reach; more troubling for Birkerts, we are extending ourselves and our senses into and among the extended senses of others. “Others” is the real pejorative term here (224).

This is where I disagree most strongly with Birkerts’ understanding of the “amniotic environment of impulses,” to use his telling metaphor of the web. I think Birkerts aptly characterizes the effect of this environment of impulses. He gets the technology right; the uncited echo of Marshall McLuhan’s defintion of technology as the “extensions of man” brings that home. We have, as McLuhan shows, always used technology to extend our senses–long before the age of electronic communication. Birkerts could be more precise in recognizing that such “extensions” would include the technologies of writing and print and bookmaking that informs the books that thus inform the selfhood he fears we are loosing. Books are part of an earlier hive of information and communication network. But no matter; he elsewhere in this book admits that his beloved book is, of course, a form of technology–even if that view is kept to a minimum. Birkerts gets not the technology wrong nor its implications (the extension of senses); he misses the point in fearing the connection to others. That is to say, I am troubled most by the “condition of connectedness” that Birkerts, it seems, forbids the act of reading. Why is connectedness the problem and solitariness the goal of our selfhood or of the creativity of reading and writing that informs it? Why must we think of creation in solitude?

Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl, like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein before it, suggests that Birkerts’ problem is to see connection as the problem…

My example of a critical application of Birkerts, stitching in, through paraphrase and direct quotation, a key idea from his conclusion to then set up the focus I will use to read Patchwork Girl: in effect, using Birkerts’ own terms and language (connectedness vs. solitariness) for my own thesis, though reversing his view, drawing distinctions.

It is worth noting that I have only recently discovered a thriving community of blogs out there that focus on books–passionate readers of books who blog about the books they are reading, want to read. A community of readers using the “condition of connectedness” of the web and blogging technology to extend their interest in book reading. What would Birkerts think? Here is a link to one such blog, So Many Books, which offers in its blogroll quite a list of book blogs. I look at this blog with interest in the social connections it makes between readers and books, through its “amniotic environment.” I am overwhelmed not by the electronic impulses, but by the reminder of the sheer number of books out there that we can, it seems, never catch up with and fully read.

On the Virtues of Preexisting Material, by Rick Prelinger: A recent article that takes up the problem of originality in the digital age, and proposes that we think instead of collage and patchwork. He speaks of orphaned works of creationg and quilts: the echoes of Frankenstein and Patchwork Girl are noticeable.

Genealogy Saturday was a success

John Gasson — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 16:54:54 +0000

Genealogy Saturday was a success.

First I spent some time on the FamilySearch Record Search site, looking at the Diocese of Durham Bishops’ Transcripts. I had searched here before (in the parish of Staindrop, Durham) for the siblings of Isabella GRAHAM, my 3x great-grandmother, but I had never finished it off.

Some of the baptism entries were quite detailed so I was able to establish that Isabella’s father Joseph was from Hexham, Northumberland. So now I have added another new county to my list of places.

After Durham and Northumberland I headed back down south, to Gloucestershire and the BATEMAN and JACKSON families. I wasn’t so lucky here, despite some records on the IGI the dates and places I was after weren’t available.

Next I moved back closer to home and the area around Singleton, Sussex. I have more ancestor from these parts than I first believed. Here I added many events for the BOXALL, RICHARDS, PITT, TARGETT and CHANDLER families.

I have identified a potential problem with Thomas PITT, my 4x great-grandfather. I know he married Ann BONE in Stoughton, Sussex in 1798, and he appears to have died before the 1841 census.

Fortunately it is not that common a name, so I should, with a little bit of searching, be able to find a burial record and hopefully an age at burial. This should enable me to work out a birth year, and I can carry on backwards from there.

All in all I added forty new individuals to my database, several of them 5x great-grandparents, and many new events. Also I finished off sorting the George Thomas GASSON stuff in my stuff to sort folder, which was really pleasing.

Pequeno Michael rouba a cena

orbtblog — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 16:40:03 +0000

ou , segundo a sasha, seria SENA ?

The King's Treasure

jasenogle — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:22:11 +0000

Crowned the King of Pop by his best friend Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson has achieved and surpassed the accomplishments of those who inspired him, those who came before him. Inspired by James Brown, Bill Bailey, Fred Astaire, and the Nicholas Brothers, Michael moulded their dance moves and made them his own. He combined his natural elements of song and dance to propel himself into superstardom. Along his way to the top he collected many awards documenting his prowess in entertainment, some of which can be found at the Michael Jackson Exhibition at the O2 Arena. Among the awards, include gold and platinum albums, the first platinum album awarded in 1969 when he was eleven.

The Exhibition chronicles the short life of the star. After experiencing a taste of Michael Jackson in concert on a large video screen, the exhibition starts with the contract his father signed with the William Morris Agency establishing his sons as the pop group The Jackson Five, which would later become The Jacksons. It continues with personal items from Michael’s life, including the Neverland Arch that led to the entrance of this former home in California. You can see cracked and chipped paint in his blue 1967 Rolls Royce Phantom that he took Elizabeth for rides in.

Props from his many cinematic music videos included the green rocket ship from “Leave me Alone,” the sleek black Gibson guitar used in the video “Scream” where he sang and danced along side his sister Janet, his Egyptian costume from his 1993 hit “Remember the Time” and the robot mask with protruding pieces from his film “Moonwalker.”

It’s widely known that Michael lived a life of extravagance. He lived like a king. His wardrobe, also featured at the exhibition,was often composed of elaborate ensembles with arm bands in the colours of royalty, accented with metals or insignias that hung from his chest like a decorated soldier. They were designed with the purpose of presenting Michael as a king. His collection often mimicked the uniforms of the royal guards of Her Majesty the Queen of England as well as the military uniforms of other countries. There are other times where his style was more futuristic, and can be described as experimental. Those were usually seen in costume at his many elaborate concerts.

Towards the end of the exhibition, props and clothing that were to be used at his final series of performances, This is It, were creatively placed in two sizeable rooms. In one room, the view of Michael’s massive and elaborate revision of the Thriller dance sequence brings back memories of his original music video. In the next area, a more modest room featured the costumes he would have changed into during his last performances, which included various versions of his trademark penny-loafers. Across from the costumes in a corner was a small thermos rotating inside of a glass case. The sign underneath stated that Michael’s children would pack his lunch inside of the thermos every day for him to take with him to rehearsals.

In the final room, a set of books with white pages were left for fans to leave their message for his family. Further along around a corner, a light shined on a solid square black pillar with a glass case on top. Inside the glass case was “the glove.” There were other versions of it that Michael wore, even in different colours to match his outfit, but this was the trademark white glove that he wore at the American Music Awards in 1984.

Adjacent to the black pillar was a quote in white printed against a black wall. The quote from Michael reflects his view on life which can be interpreted as an optimistic commentary on his own.

“If you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with.” – Michael Jackson (1958 -2009)

Julie & Julia vs. Alice & Wonderland

Jackson H. — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 06:25:55 +0000

A couple of months ago, I went and saw the fabulous movie Julie & Julia.

The movie depicts, in remarkable comparison, the lives of Julia Child as she writes her famous cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and Julie Powell, a closet foodie who decides to cook her way through every recipe in Julia’s book in a year – and blog about the process. In the past year or two, I’ve started to take a great interest in cooking, and am becoming slowly capable of putting together something that tastes pretty good. The movie was good in narrative, the actors were excellent, and it was hilarious from start to finish. When I watched it on rental DVD again last night, I got up to go get a bagel out of the pantry, walked by my room, and saw my copy of The Annotated Alice sitting on my desk. I immediately saw the connection between the two.

Strangely enough, the connection was made not between the storyline of the movie and the storyline of the book, but by the storyline of the movie and my own process of discovering Alice.

In Julie & Julia, Julie Powell is sizing up her decision to commit to the project of cooking her way though Child’s enormous cookbook. As she is turning the idea over in her head, she realizes that she really doesn’t have much else to do, and needs to find herself a hobby. So when she latches onto the project, she dives deep into the psyche of Julia Child, becoming slightly obsessed with her mentor. As she cooks, she starts to mature and understand better her path in life – not necessarily as a cook, but certainly as a person. The adventure she has in the movie is a sort of a coming-of-age story, albeit later in her life.

I, too, had a coming of age when the Alice Project started. When I pulled the textbook / novel / perceived impending doom out of my locker for the first time, my initial thought was, predictably, “This. Teacher. Is. Nuts.” We had to write 12 blog entries in just 6 weeks? Plus 15 comments? And no fair “cheating” and putting them all on one blog (namely, my own)?

Bleh.

The worst part of it was that 70% of it was to be done on our own time. I work far better when I can sit down and have some structured time (not structured by me, as I’m not so great at sticking to said structure) set out so that I and others can concentrate on one task. Sure, we’d have some class time that was exactly that, but if I thought I was getting everything done in that time alone, I had another thing coming. My mind voiced another 20 complaints. “This is a kid’s book! And if it isn’t, it’ll be analyzed to death, both by these annotations, and by us! I hate picking stuff apart!”

Somehow, I realized that I sounded like an 8-year old refusing to eat his green beans, and got on with the task at hand. And what do you know – it wasn’t that bad. Sure, the first few days were awkward, but as the project gained steam, so did all the students working on it. At this point, I feel capable of doing whatever I need to do to get all of the required material off the ground.

I’ve had a coming of age through Alice, and have never been happier to grow up.

Michael Jackson - Human Nature (Thriller 1982)

harry5599 — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 05:39:10 +0000

"Human Nature" is a song by American R & B recording artist Michael Jackson. It was de

Some kinda random

jhintze — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 02:08:34 +0000

Just some random news here in our world.

Mikey is talking like crazy!! It’s so awesome to FINALLY hear his thoughts come out in a somewhat rational and intelligible way! I’m so excited to finally have to watch my mouth in front of him. It’s so great!

I got my main camera back a few days ago. There was indeed something wrong with it and it is now fixed. I’m very glad they didn’t tell me that it was user error and tell me just to read the manual. I might have been peeved.

Jackson has lost some teeth lately and has another one that will be ready to come out soon. He holds onto teeth forever. It’s almost impossible to get him to pull those things. Jack won’t put his teeth under his pillow at our house. He waits until he spends the night with his grandparents. The tooth fairy pays double over there. We’re fine with that.

I’m gratefully bombarded with lots of sessions, editing, and orders to process. This is a very busy time of the year which is why I don’t have much time to blog. In fact, I really shouldn’t be blogging now but photoshop is batch editing for me right now so it’s cool.

We got Mikey some precious footed sleepers on sale the other day. They are size 4 and we probably could have gotten a size 5. He’s not even 3 yet. He’s huge.

I will be launching a new wedding/engagement/bridal website by the end of the year or early next year. I’ve had a hard time finding time to get that done and ready to go.

Phillip and I are seriously thinking about selling our house and buying another one in a year or so. A few things would have to fall into place for that to happen. We’ve really outgrown this house. Mikey can easily use 1300 square feet all by himself. And 4 people living with one bathroom kind of sucks. I know that lots of families have grown up with one bathroom but if we can have two, that would be so awesome!

We got all our Christmas decorations out and up today. Phillip didn’t complain too much. We didn’t listen to Christmas music while we decorated. We listened to Wilco. I put some decorations in Mikey’s reach this year. We’ll see how that goes.

Santa Claus might bring Jackson a bike but Jackson doesn’t want a bike. He has zero interest in ever riding a bike. I don’t know what to do about it.

I started to get kind of sick a day or two before Thanksgiving but Seagate throat and nose spray saved me again. I haven’t been on an antibiotic in years.

I’m talking a little bit tomorrow in church. I spoke briefly a couple of weeks ago about our pregnancy losses. This week I’ll be focusing more on Mikey. The pastor wanted us to bring Mikey up to the front. I think that’s a BAD idea. We’ll show a picture.

Trailers and Clothing

jamesmwillis — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 01:17:36 +0000

Today, I went out too several places with my dear mother. I ventured to a blogging class which was quite interesting. I went to Kohls wear I bought a suit, a hat (pictured), two ties, and a vest. I also went to World Market where I devoured some strange tasting candies that aren’t sitting in my stomach very well. Ugh. It was slightly overcast today so that lightened my mood a bit. I was apparently asleep when it rained. Supposedly. The class was good. It taught me a few things. I quite enjoyed it as I said before. Anyway. I ate some Chicken Strips at Chick-Fil-A. They were delicious.

So a new trailer for “Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lighting Thief”. I liked the books although the writing was iffy. The whole story was well thought out and planned. The movie, however, looks much different. Not bad, but different.

Watch the Trailer on Yahoo.com

Local News

ohioskateuniv — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 13:44:58 +0000

From 1031Skates:
“It looks as though Vin Diesel rides one of our DRI decks. Who would have thought.Photo curtesy of Todd Schwartz @ GardenSK8 in Pine Brook , NJ”Now I need to see a video of Vin Diesel doing an ollie.

Click more for more news.

Spotted at JustKillMePlease.
Video premiered yesterday in Cincinnati and featured Taylor Nawrocki, who, I believe, is also from Lazy Sunday fame.

Skatopia and the DC Skate Plaza are on Playboy’s Top Ten Skateparks in America.
P.S. Don’t blame me if you get caught wandering on Playboy’s site. That is your own fault.

Dan Forkin got a Mag Minute feature from The Skateboard Mag so check that out and support Dan.

Kristian Svitak left Innes, the reason? We don’t get one but he does say that now he doesn’t have a clothing sponsor he might just be a nudist.

Spotted at Transworld:
Habitat recently launched its own footwear company with Guru Khalsa, Marius Syvanen, Austyn Gillette and Alex Davis forming the team. Below are pictures of 4 of the 6 new shoes that they will be releasing. Skateshop owners, if you want to add them to your inventory click here.

Quest

Basin

Lark

Ibex