URL : http://www.flashgame-girl.com/Puzzle-board/Powerpuff-Girls-Pipeline-Panic.html

Game description :

Help the professor build the pipeline before the ingredients spill onto the floor!

Game controls :

Arrow keys- To move.
Space bar- To build.

Compressor stations are causing a lot of problems in Pennsylvania. This video was taken after a release of an oily substance from Steckman Ridge Compressor in Clearville, PA, on August 23, 2009. The owners of this farm are fearful that their land is hopelessly contaminated, and they don’t know what is in the oily substance they found sprinkled all over everything: their farm equipment, the hay wagon, their crops and plants, their pasture land, their blueberry bushes, their springfed pond. They found soot on their roof. The pond has an oily scum on it. Their plants wilted after this incident. They are asking: Is our farm safe or not?Clearville farmers have watched their animals die- two cows, a horse, many cats, and all of their hens. There are three compressor stations, all within 10 miles. According to the DEP, air tests are not done around compressor stations, despite many requests from residents who live near them. Is the air safe in Clearville? The residents are worried.

As expected, President Obama will soon announce his decision to escalate the Afghan War to the tune of around 30,000 soldiers. Meanwhile, Blackwater is busy at work in Pakistan, heading up our governments secret assassination program and performing “various tasks” for the CIA and Joint Chiefs of Staff. Jeremy Scahill’s article is worth quoting in detail:

“Part of this, of course, is an attempt to get around the constraints the Congress has placed on DoD. If you don’t have sufficient soldiers to do it, you hire civilians to do it. I mean, it’s that simple. It would not surprise me,” [said Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff from 2002 to 2005.]

Blackwater, he said, is already so deeply entrenched that it has become a staple of the US military operations in Pakistan. According to the former Blackwater executive, “The politics that go with the brand of BW is somewhat set aside because what you’re doing is really one military guy to another.” Blackwater’s first known contract with the CIA for operations in Afghanistan was awarded in 2002 and was for work along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

We are not told the extent of mercenary presense in Pakistan/Afghanistan, but some sources allege there to be one mercenary soldier for every US Army man there. So the true extent of the escalation has been hidden from the public, and it might be prudent to double any reported troop presence in Afghanistan. Obama’s stated “buildup” of 30,000 troops will bring the official total in the Afghan theatre to around 110,000 soldiers, which means there could be up to 200,000 actually there.

Good thing we elected such a progressive leader!

Funding Source: Pipeline & Hazardous Material Safety Administration
Funding Type: Discretionary, Grant
Total Available: $1 Million
Award Ceiling: $50,000
Deadline: 01.04.10
Eligibility: Local Governments

Description:
The Technical Assistance Grants (TAG) program, first authorized in the Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2002 (Pub. L. 107-355, codified at 49 U.S.C. 60130), offers new opportunities to strengthen the depth and quality of public participation in pipeline safety matters. Section 9 of the Act, titled: “Pipeline Safety Information Grants to Communities” authorized the Secretary of Transportation to make grants to local communities and organizations for technical assistance relating to pipeline safety issues. The TAG program was then amended by Section 5 of the Pipeline Inspection, Protection, Enforcement, and Safety Act of 2006. However, FY 2009 was the first year in which PHMSA has received appropriations to fund the grant program. These grants will allow communities and groups of individuals to obtain funding for technical assistance in the form of engineering or other scientific analysis of pipeline safety issues and help promote public participation in official proceedings.

Due to technical issues with linking to federal web portals, please contact us, or post a comment below if you are interested in receiving more information about this opportunity.

Spectra Energy Corp. said Monday its subsidiary, Texas Eastern Transmission LP, reached a deal with oil and gas producer Range Resources Corp. to transport supplies of Appalachian natural gas in the northeastern U.S.

Under the agreement, Texas Eastern will provide a minimum of 150 million cubic feet per day of transportation capacity for Range Resources at the Marcellus Shale formation in Pennsylvania.

via Spectra Energy inks gas deal with Range Resources – News Wires – CNBC.com.

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It was a presentation of EPA staff concerning the new PCB Mega Rule — to an audience of several hundred mostly industry representatives.

The fact is that natural gas pipelines are now regulated under the PCB rule because many of them ARE contaminated with PCBs, due to leaking of PCB oil used in the compressor pumps which push the gas through the pipeline.

All along the gas lines — from the original wells to our homes and industries — are condensate traps where sampling often finds PCB in high levels. (Between 50 and 500 ppm)

via PCBs in Natural Gas Lines.

Fishing in Kribi isn’t what it used to be. There are certainly multiple reasons for the decline in fish stock, but everyone here singles out the pipeline as the main culprit.  The pipeline cuts right through the middle of the coastal village of Bume, just south of Kribi, on its way to the marine loading terminal 12 kilometers offshore. The residents of Bumé, who depend entirely on fishing, blame the pipeline for killing their livelihood.

There are two types of fishing in the Kribi area and the pipeline impacted each differently.  The hardest hit are the small, village fisherman — like the residents of Bumé — who put their nets out just offshore.  These fishermen do not have motor power; they paddle their small dugout canoes out to sea and are unable work more than a few kilometers from shore.

They used to catch the fish that lived in the reef just offshore. That reef was blasted away during pipeline construction and the fish have never come back.  Using their traditional fishing methods, local fishermen now pull in only a few kilos of fish at a time.  Sometimes, they pull in nothing at all.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the initial pipeline plans did not include the destruction of the reef.   As no one from ExxonMobil would speak to me, I could not find out why this, a significant environmental impact, was not not part of any early reviews.  The shallow waters of the coast here are lined with rocky offshore reefs and the Bumé reef was clearly visible.  If any local fishermen had been interviewed, they would have talked about the importance of the reef for local fishing.

Although ExxonMobil documents claim that there were multiple environmental studies and an extensive consultation process prior to pipeline construction, my research (and that of others) shows that consultations were limited and insufficient. There was a lack of frank, detailed communication. Oil company representatives were often accompanied by government officials when visiting villages, a further impediment to any real dialogue.

The marine loading terminal, seen from Bumé.

So the pipeline construction crews came through, blasted away the reef, and left behind a village with no viable source of income. The people of Bumé — poor to begin with — were ruined.   Although the area is dotted with hotels, tourism is still on a fairly small scale here and there’s definitely not enough hotel or restaurant work to employ all the fishermen of a village. Following numerous complaints from residents and NGOs, the fish pond plan was foisted on the residents of Bumé.  After that failed, COTCO eventually put out an artificial reef made of tires.  According to Bumé residents, that structure has already detached from the seabed and risen close to the surface of the water. It does not attract fish. Bume residents claim that the fish, plentiful before the pipeline construction, have not returned in the seven years since construction ended.

Again, I could not verify this information as no officials would speak to me.  But I did see what the fishermen hauled in and it’s very little.  I also spoke with local journalists and environmentalists who have been following the plight of the Kribi fishermen and concur with their claims.

At the port of Kribi, I met with local fishermen who fish on a somewhat larger scale.  They still go out in wooden boats, but they are larger and powered by outboard motors.  These men are out at sea for two to three days at a time.

These boats have just enough room for the fishermen and the ice chests and it’s hard to imagine how the men spend several days out on the water. It was raining the day I was at the port and the seas were choppy.  The fishermen coming in were thoroughly soaked.  It’s a tough life, but when the fishing is good, there’s enough income to sustain a local economy.  The fish they bring to port are packed in ice and are immediately dispatched to buyers who distribute to Douala, Yaounde and beyond.

The fishermen in Kribi also had complaints about the pipeline.  They, too, report that fish stocks are down, although they see the trawlers  (Chinese, Spanish and others) offshore and blame them for depleting stocks with their destructive fishing techniques.  The pipeline poses different problems for these fishermen.  First, there’s a large security perimeter around the marine loading terminal where no boats are allowed, effectively limiting their fishing zone.  Then, even more troubling, is the question of oil pollution.

In January 2007, a small spill occurred at the marine loading terminal.  Unfortunately, COTCO did not release any information about the spill for four days.  Local village leaders were kept in the dark for an additional two days. The Cameroonian government agency responsible for the pipeline made no public statement on the oil spill.  The spill, which began in the middle of the night, was only detected, visually, in the morning, suggesting that the marine terminal facility is lacking sufficient surveillance technology.  At the time of the spill there was no national emergency plan for dealing with spills at the marine loading terminal, despite the fact that this plan is required by law and should have been in place before the marine loading terminal became operational.

Several NGOs released a news statement shortly after the spill that underlined the problems caused by COTCO’s silence.  The public was unable to get any credible information about the actual amount of oil spilled, the cause of the spill or COTCO’s emergency response procedures — especially crucial given the lack of a national plan.  Suspicions and rumors filled the void and added to the general public distrust of COTCO.

Fishermen today say they can often see oil on the water near the terminal.  Is this true? Is this from the marine loading terminal or from passing ships? It is hard to say as no officials will speak and local journalists are thwarted in their efforts to gather credible information.

I was consistently frustrated by COTCO’s unwillingness to speak publicly.  The case of the missing fish is one example of a problem whose causes are likely more complex than one missing reef.  For the public, however, the logic is simple: if COTCO won’t speak, it’s because COTCO has something to hide and therefore, COTCO is to blame.

“It runs 24 hours a day seven days a week,” said Richard Usack who lives close to 500 feet away. “It sounds like a lawnmower running outside my window all the time. This is ruining my life.”

And it’s not just the noise that bothers Usack. “At night it’s lit up like a Christmas tree,” he said, and those lights shine into his windows all night long. Usack has called Chesapeake a couple of times about his concerns, and they’ve sent someone down to measure the sound. But they don’t share the results with Usack.

What really bothers Usack, though, is that the town didn't have a site review or notify neighbors about the project. Sure, he sold the one-acre parcel to Columbia a few years back – and Columbia sold it to Chesapeake – but Usack didn’t realize they would use it for such a large compressor because the town has zoning. And that area is zoned residential/agricultural, not industrial. The compressor, he says, is industrial in nature.

via The Marcellus Effect: Compressor Stations a side-effect of Marcellus Drilling.

Tamannah has turned out to be the lady with the golden touch! The actress is seen playing the on screen pair with some of the best and well established actors in Kollywood. While Padikadhavan she paired opposite Dhanush, in Ayan it was Suriya. She also has two more projects in the pipeline – one with Vijay (Sura) and the other with Jayam Ravi (Thillalangadi).

With the actress steadily climbing the professional ladder, she is keener on having her profile complete with a Rajinikanth and Ajith film. Tamannah has expressed her desire to be a part of Rajinikanth’s film, as she feels that it means reaching the pinnacle.

Michael Giberson

Tom Fowler, at NewsWatch: Energy, takes note of commentary by Tudor Pickering concerning a FERC investigation into whether three natural gas pipeline companies were over-recovering on their regulated rates. (See FERC press release here; a Reuters article.)

Tudor Pickering, an energy industry advisory and investment company, notes that since 1992 FERC hasn’t required periodic rate cases by natural gas pipelines, but rather has predominantly relied upon pipeline co. initiative or customer complaints to motivate changes in rates.  Rate cases are expensive for pipelines, customers, and regulators, so minimizing the number of rates cases can cut costs.  Even when customers complain, rates are typically settled by agreement rather than through new rate cases.  The 1992 policy switch was part of a “light-handed” approach to regulation that accompanied deregulation or restructuring of many other industries in the 1980s and 1990s.

Apparently now, however, disclosure regulations issued in 2008 resulted in FERC noticing that a few companies appeared to be over-recovering costs.  Not only did FERC notice, they’ve decided to do something about it.  Investigations will be launched, hearings held, etc.  Tudor Pickering finds this turn of events “disturbing.”  The “pipes probably assumed the FERC would continue to let market forces work,” but instead, Tudor Pickering observes in chilling tones: “So much for that. Big Brother is watching!”

Hmmm, who would have thought that, if you disclose information to the government entity regulating your rates, that the agency would use that information in rate regulation?  Apparently “light-handed rate regulation” is actually a form of rate regulation.

Wer ist der Klügere von Beiden?

A natural gas pipeline exploded in the Texas Panhandle on Thursday, shaking homes, melting window blinds and shooting flames hundreds of feet into the air, authorities said. Three people were injured in the blast, which occurred at 1 a.m. near Amarillo, and they were taken to an area hospital with burns, said Potter County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Roger Short.

via un-naturalgas.org weblog :: Thursday a.m. pipeline explosion, Texas :: http://un-naturalgas.org/weblog.

Water is pumped and piped through temporary pipes over long distances and through many obstacles to get the 3 to 6 million gallons of water needed for hydro-fracing one Marcellus Shale gas well.

In addition to this water piped in from streams, tanker trucks are continuously pumping water out of local streams and hauling it to the site of the proposed fracking. Restrictions on water usage are lax, most notable during periods of drought when stream levels are already low…

via Pumping and piping water to frack a Marcellus gas well.

Nada como ver Mr Jamie O’Brien surfando um dos primeiros pipelines da temporada.

Texto original:

Jamie O’ Brien Ripping Pipeline 09

Vale a pena reparar no tamanho do crowd, mas para quem é local, isso não faz a menor diferença…

This is old news, but earlier this month, a gas line exploded in Bushland (about 15 miles outside of Amarillo). You can read all about it here.

Anyway, after the explosion at 2 in the morning, Alex called me  in hysterics just before I was about to slip into a deep coma and told me to grab my camera and haul ass. I did just that, but by the time I got on the road, APD had already gotten their roadblocks in place. Just like any stubborn, crazy, camera-wielding moron, I wasn’t going to let the roadblocks get in the way of a photo op. I ditched my car at a gas station, crossed the highway under an overpass and started jogging through a field toward the fire, ducking whenever emergency vehicles and police drove by on the access road (ya know, so they didn’t pick me up and ruin my fun). The gas station was at least three miles away from the actual fire, and I figure I got about a mile away from it on foot before I started to freeze (I sleep in a tank top and underwear. After Alex called, I flew out of bed, threw on the closest pair of jeans and a fleece pullover and slipped on a pair of Toms, no socks. Wrong choice). After I ran out of field to run through (there were these irritating hills in the way), I decided I wasn’t going to get to the fire. Too bad. I wandered back to the access road, and Alex picked me up on his way back from the fire (he cheated and had a reporter sneak him in) and drove me back to my car. Here are the shots I got from real far away.

Pipe. © Joli

I’m on my way to Hawaii, we’ve got an amazing world title showdown about to unfold in front of us at Pipe and my mind is just full of all of those amazing waves we had last North Shore winter. My mood has obviously been helped along by my recent run of results which has got me back into a position to achieve my goal for this year – finishing inside the Top 5.

I’ve had a chance to freshen up at home on the Goldie after the Search in Portugal and I’m frothing about what might lie ahead in Oahu. The Triple Crown is going to be awesome.

Having that little “mini-circuit” at the end of the Dream Tour is a nice carrot at the end of the season for the guys who are out of the running for the world title — and that’s all of us bar Mick and Joel!

That carrot’s pretty big this year too. It’s a nice cash prize but I still reckon the prestige of being a Triple Crown winner is something money can’t buy. If I can repeat my 2007 Crown success again, I’ll be stoked.

But most eyes are rightfully going to be on Joel and Mick. Australia wins either way because we get to bring the world champion home with us at the end of the Pipe Masters. It’s going to be an awesome show as the title comes down to the wire.

Mick has the upper hand — but not by much. Both guys have made finals at Pipe so it’s anyone’s still. I’d love to replicate my 2007 success at Pipe because not only would it cement that top 5 finish I want and prime me for a big campaign next year, I will have also achieved my other goal of winning at least
one event per year.

I’ve done that the last three years running, so the pressure’s on at Pipe!
My recent run gives me some confidence, though. I last blogged after the event in France where Mick beat me in the final. I followed that with a 5th at Mundaka and then reaching the final in Portugal against Mick yet again. So I can’t be too bummed. Two seconds in France and Portugal, a third at Trestles and a fifth at Mundaka gave me the consolidating run through California and Europe that I needed.

It was a bonus to also be involved in one of the more memorable tour days. I’m talking about the third round and quarter final day at the Search.

We’d missed the best surf in years at Mundaka by a week so everybody was amping for Portugal.

We had fun waves before the event started. There are so many set-ups there and that coast gets so much swell. Everyone was stoked to be surfing some good waves because we hadn’t had much the rest of the European leg.

I felt right at home among the punchy beach breaks. Growing up on Straddie Island, we encounter those sorts of waves all the time. The only bummer is they are board breakers too! I snapped my favourite board on my first wave in my heat with Marlon Lipke. I was so bummed. It was the magic board I won in Brazil last year and that I had used in the final in France. I loved that board!

Peniche. © Joli

It was hard to get my head around it for a couple of minutes there but then I said to myself: “I’ll get another magic one”, and got on with the heat.

The third round and quarter finals were pretty insane. We scored some of the best waves of the year in round three. There were a lot of closeouts in the quarters but the odd perfect one would sneak through. It was one of those that saved me in my quarter with Jordy. That’s a heat I’ll definitely remember. I knew he would be fired up to beat me because I had knocked him out in the last comp the week before. And sure enough he had me on the ropes and just about beat. I needed a 9.67 to win, which is pretty much a 10. But I just had this weird feeling that if I was patient I was going to get it. Luckily this bomb came through and it went to plan. That wave – and being awarded a 10 – was such a rush. And the crowd made it even better. They were insane to surf in front of, probably the best I’ve seen on tour. They made it so much more exciting to surf.

My semi clash with Parko is also something I’ll remember for a long time. I knew it was going to take a big heat to overcome Joel given he was obviously back in top form. The swell had dropped off from the previous day but it still looked fun. Joel got a couple of good scores early then the wind changed halfway through the heat and just went to crap. I needed something like a 7.8 and I couldn’t see much hope of that given how the barrels at the start of the heat had pretty much disappeared. Time was ticking down and this left came. Parko didn’t go it and I thought ‘I’ll just go it and see what happens’. It turned into a 7.3 and then I only needed a 5.5. I paddled back out and pretty much got nearly the same score. If only all heats went that well!

The conditions were even worse for the final. Mick and I were both scrambling for whatever we could find. It was really hard to find a wave that ran off and let you get in a few turns. I fell on a good wave and that probably cost me the final. But it was still good to finish on a high note after a good trip.

Bring on Hawaii!

- Bede

One unique aspect of the drug development pipeline (see previous Chart of the Day) is that there is a series of clinical trials conducted by pharmaceutical companies and CROs in a phased approach. University of Pittsburgh has compiled a convenient summary of each phase to better understand the differences among clinical trial phases (link here):

In den Bau der Gas-Pipeline South-Stream ist nach Gesprächen zwischen Russland und Österreich und der Zustimmung Sloweniens sich an dem Projekt zu beteiligen Bewegung gekommen.

Gespräche zwischen dem russischen Ministerpräsidenten Putin und der slowenischen Regierung haben am Samstag dazu geführt, dass Slowenien den Bau der South-Stream-Pipeline offiziell unterstützt. Slowenien ist nach Bulgarien, Griechenland, Ungarn und Serbien das letzte Transitland, dass einen entsprechenden Vertrag unterzeichnet hat und so den Weg nach Italien ermöglicht. Zur Zeit laufen ebenfalls Gespräche mit Österreich, nach Italien dem zweiten Land in dem die Pipeline enden soll.

Im Vergleich zur von der EU unterstützten konkurierenden Nabucco-Pipeline ist das South-Stream Projekt, zumindest nach russischer Sicht, jetzt deutlich im Vorteil.

Dass das von der EU unterstütze Projekt jetzt schlechter dasteht, beweist einmal mehr wie uneins die EU in wirtschaftlichen Fragen handelt. Unilaterale Interessen werden im Zweifelsfall dann doch vorgezogen.

Karte: Samuel Bailey

Re-posted from the Cross-Border Biotech Blog

By Jeremy Grushcow

As part of the  Gairdner Foundation’s 50th anniversary celebrations recently, there was a breakfast panel with a lot of brainpower (even for MaRS). Cal Stiller led a discussion by David Baltimore, Phillip Sharp and Corey Goodman who between them have three Gairdner awards and two Nobel prizes.

These top-notch scientists also have truly impressive corporate expertise: Board members of Amgen, Biogen and Limerick BioPharma. They turned their attention to “unclogging the pipeline.”

David Baltimore discussed reasons we’ve seen fewer approvals:

1. Higher regulatory safety barrier.
2. Low-hanging fruit is gone. A lot of targets are for diseases that are not fatal in the short term, which (see #1) creates a high safety barrier. Also, he says the molecular targets are harder.

Baltimore also identified potential areas of success: a subject area (immunotherapy) and a structural area (UCLA medical center’s translational research institute).

Phillip Sharp talked about the changing structure of early stage and translational funding.

• VC is re-thinking their model, but pharmas are reaching out earlier in the pipeline with incubators and academic outreach; and there is more public funding available to move products further along the pipeline.
• Trends he identifies: personalized medicine (patient-driven with $1000 genome); and a huge role for engineers and incremental improvements.

Corey Goodman starts with some stats:

• current success rate is closer to 1 in 25, not the 1 in 10 number still cited from the 1990’s
• cost of a new drug (R&D dollars divided by successful approvals) around $3 billion.

Nevertheless, Goodman sees upside due to huge unmet medical needs, deficient pipelines and vast academic output.

Panel discussion:

Will healthcare reform plans interfere with the United States’ (hidden) subsidization of global drug development through high prices?

• Baltimore points to $80 billion pharma deal that avoided price controls, but says prices are unsustainable.
• Sharp agrees that costs can’t be a bigger part of GDP, but it’s a big bucket even at current levels and there is room for efficiencies that don’t impact reimbursement.
• Goodman says importation can’t be prevented long-term based on a safety argument, so we’ll have to deal with pricing more globally [regardless of U.S. health reform efforts].

Aren’t early-stage acquisitions still (and permanently) the outliers?

• Baltimore thinks there will be a number of early-stage transformative technolgies that yield early successes, but VC and other early funders need to be more stringent and keep an eye on the long-term potential of even very early stage products.
• Sharp thinks that academia is not well-suited to disciplined discovery, and if the policy goal is to develop more products, we’ll need structural changes in academia.

The panel wrapped up on an optimistic note.  Not surprising — how can you not feel good in Gairdner season? Speaking of Gairdner season, don’t forget to check out this year’s winners.

Jeremy Grushcow  is a Foreign Legal Consultant practising corporate law at Ogilvy Renault LLP. He has a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology. His practice focuses on life science and technology companies.