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Thursday it was released that 200 pounds of Sulfur Dioxide was accidentally released from the Delaware City’s PBF refinery..
It was allegedly caused by a mechanical malfunction at the facility ….. Sulfur Dioxide when mixed with H2O creates Sulfuric Acid. Air is full of water. So are our lungs.
Bloomsberg reported on October 9, 2013 that Delaware City was postponing its Sulfur Dioxide fix till late 2014. The refinery, which was initially expected to do the work as part of maintenance that month (October 2013), was halting its replacement of an exchanger on the sulfur unit, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t to be made public. … Work was pushed up one year to October 2014.
Had that work been done in a timely fashion, the Thursday’s reported release would never have occurred……..
According to Bloomsberg’s sources, a coker, crude unit and hydrocracker, a hydrogen plant and desulfurizer, were all originally scheduled for maintenance upgrades last fall. Upon receiving costs estimates it was decided to split the job up to cover two fiscal cycles, and the desulfurizer maintenance was pushed to the next fiscal year. It was known by upper management that this would necessitate a release of SO2 because of accumulations caused by the outdated equipment. Another release is tentatively planned for September, just before work started.
Due to wind conditions, the only Delawareans affected would be those downwind. Only 1713 people live downwind from Delaware City’s gas crackers. 853 men, 860 women.
The average amount of SO2 from an oil burning plant, is 12 pounds per MWh…. Natural Gas is a hundred times less. About one percent of oil and that amounts to .12 pounds or 1 ounce per MWh… Therefore 200 pounds of SO2 released is equivalent to 19 hours running at a one megawatt hour oil fired plant running full kilter… At a 248 MWh natural gas plant (TDC) running full kilter 24/7, it would be the equivalent of… (248 MWh X .12 lbs SO2/ MWh ) = 29.76 pounds of SO2 per hour….
So on one hand this may not seem like much… The 200 pound release is only the equivalent of 6.7 hours of a natural gas fired power plant running at full steam night and day…. precisely 6 hours and 43 minutes…. less than most of us sleep per night….
On the other hand that is quite a bit. The Newark power plant will spew out a level of what this report implies, is considered a toxic release requiring DNREC oversight, FOUR TIMES EVERY SINGLE 24 HOUR DAY!
President Harker wants to build a power plant in town that will spew out four times this toxic release at Delaware City, every single day.
Governor Markell wants to build a power plant in town that will spew out frou times the toxic release at Delaware City, every single day.
The Delaware Chamber of Commerce wants to build a power plant in town that will spew out four times the toxic release of Delaware City every single day.
The Hammer and Nails Club wants to build a power plant in town that will spew out four times the toxic release of Delaware City, every single day.
Sam Latham of the AFL-CIO, wants to build a power plant in town that will spew out four times the toxic release of Delaware City, every single day.
Everyone wearing green and holding green signs, is looking the other way when it comes to having this toxic release, occurring ongoing in the heart of Newark, every, single day…..
Whereas only 1713 people due to geography could be even remotely affected from the Delaware city spill, 41 times that amount or 70,500 will inhale 4 times that amount every single day, because of someone’s brilliant idea of building a 248 MWh plant right inside the center of town…
Pure brilliance. President Harker. Pure brilliance.
Said Senator Hocker yesterday. …
“I don’t think you can redefine marriage when God is the one who defined marriage, as between one man and one woman. Some people say well I don’t believe that! You might as believe nothing, not to believe that! I believe God’s word is infallible; it was inspired by God. You believe everything in it or believe nothing! Why take those pages and tear them out,because you don’t believe them? God defined marriage. Man is now saying we don’t believe what God has defined and we want to change it. For man to redefine something that God was very clear defining.. God will win.
“I have gay/lesbians working for me, family members, close family members, my wife has them as close family members, I don’t hold anything against them, but don’t ask me to go against God for something that they feel is equality….. “
Which reminded me of someone else:
“You believe everything in the Bible or believe nothing!” said Hocker.
At first such a headline sounds trite and unthoughtful. Oh, it’s the simple linking of two words to forge a relationship. The proper name for that inside the English Language, is zeugma, a term borrowed from the Greeks.
But there appears to be something there. From a woman’s point of view, rape has been in the news a lot lately. And I don’t mean the physical reporting of actual rapes, they seem to be less than in the past. But the philosophical discussion about rape, has almost dominated the political discussions across this political season.
We have offensive laws proposed requiring wands inserted by strangers up into ones vagina.
We have the Akins physical slip of legitimizing rape in some circumstances.
We have the Bodenweiser situation here in Delaware. As if by being extremely religious, he was beyond reproach.
We have the Murdoch debate from last night. Rape is protected by God.
They show a crack in the Republican armor.
When confronted, the wiggle and try to hide what they meant, which was that rape is a “so what” type of crime.
Here are some of the responses Republicans bring up when confronted by this acceptance of rape as a normal human attribute.
Rapes happen.
She asked for it.
She should have kept herself locked up.
It’s just sex.
She’s lying. She wanted it too.
And if she gets pregnant.
It’s god’s child, not hers.
It’s life; we have to preserve life; the mother is unimportant.
It’s ok to rape if a man wants sex and a woman doesn’t.
The woman is required to be submissive to the man.
She must keep the child, because God is punishing her, and the child is her cross to bear.
I don’t know how many of you sit in cross examinations. But most of you have seen fake ones on television dramas. They are not alike, trust me, but there is one things that reigns true over both. If someone is trying to hide something from you, they don’t come right out and tell you.
Instead you have to look at the peripheral, and use questioning tactics to force them to explain anomalies from their story. What is buried internally, invariably slips out. Then, forcing them to explain those things eventually uncovers that which they are working so hard to hide.
It is safe to say, that the Republican Party has no concern for women. They will use women, but they do not have any concern. It is a man’s world in the Republican Party. And as long as a woman supports the notion that woman must be submissive to man, and she wins votes, she can be a part of that party…..
Is it ok to rape?
Look at the bigger picture.
Rape of the Budget Surplus put in place by Clinton.
Rape of people’s property rights under eminent domain.
Rape of animals rights encouraging wanton killing.
Rape of the earth’s resources, putting profits ahead of cleaning up after themselves.
Rape of Earth’s Climate; encouraging Global Warning.
There is a tendency for Republicans to rape everything they get their hands on.
Look at the rape of Republican Chris Christie’s New Jersey Budget.
Look at the rape of Tea Party’s Rick Scott of Florida’s budget.
Look at the rape of Koch’s Scott Walker, of Wisconsin’s ones prosperous financial health.
Look at the rape of Ronald Reagan’s use of borrowed money to fund his bounce back economic times.
And then contrast that, to the healthy building of mutual sustaining policies that benefit everyone whenever Democrats have full power…..
If Republicans = Rape, then Democrats = Long, lasting, happy marriages…….
Don’t take my word for it. Skim any newspaper.
There was a moment, when after the magnets had done their job, and the police are sorting though the residue on the floor, they pick up a photo picture, and notice something missed before, an address with names..
I felt “OH NO!”. especially after the high of seeing the lap top was beyond repair.
I noticed my teenage daughter cringe at the same time as well.
And that’s when it hit me. Our youth is being taught to sympathize with bad guys.
It is no wonder when shots ring out in Wilmington tomorrow morning, that even thought witnesses were present, no one saw a thing.
Really, when watching that show, which Jason mentioned was the best on television, who do YOU empathize with?
After our generation is dead, this nation I’m afraid is in for some dark days.
Let’s hope that outlook changes after the Dark Knight Rises.….
Here is the blog that has been quoted recently by the mainstream press, especially after the video went viral, and they had to scramble to cover up the fact they originally tried to whitewash the incident.
“DUMB COLLEGE KIDS”, the right wing pundits squeal…
Not so…
Try an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, who organized the peaceful demonstration.
Or try an Associate Professor of English, who was grabbed by her hair, thrown on the ground.
Or try Associate Professor Geoffrey O’Brien who was injured by baton blows.
or try Professor Robert Hass, former Poet Laureate of the United States, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, who was also struck with a baton.
I wonder how this child’s mom feels right now: One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.
Or the dad who was there, bedside, to welcome this bundle of joy into the world.
Or the Grandparents of these children… When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats.
What’s the point? What were you trying to prove, Mr Rogue Policeman? Ohhhhh, that you were sooooooooo tough… I bet all the women flock to you now, don’t they?
What were you trying to prove, Chancellor Katehi? That you have an iron will? Or that you didn’t care? You had to appease the wealthy donors. The tents were such an eyesore and had to be removed, even with the potential for a loss of life?
What were you trying to prove, Republicans? Cutting taxes. Underfunding institutions of learning. Trimming school budgets so the wealthy wouldn’t have to pay their fair share of the cost of living in American society…
Go ahead. Save them a couple of pennies…. Beat the student’s senseless.. Fill their lungs with pepper spray… Ram their lower abdomens with your batons. Make them unable to ever bear children…. Do it for your wealthy master. All so millionaires can save one more penny on the dollar they’ve already taken from us…
Oh, no… Wait… Why didn’t we think of that before… If you kill us all off now, you won’t get back your student loans we borrowed from you at those exorbitant amounts of interest you so graciously parted your money for….
60 required…
53 Democrats…
-1 Joe Manchin D-WV X
-1 Kay Hagen D NC X
-1 Mark Pryor D AR X
-1 Bernie Sanders VT
-1 Debbie Stabenow MI X
48 Democrats for…
Republicans:
+1 Susan Collins ME
+1 Scott Brown MA
+1 Mitch McConnell KY
+1 Olympia Snowe ME
+1 Lisa Murkowske AK
+1 Mark Kirk IL
+1 Kay Bailey Hutchinson
+1 Lamar Alexander TN
+1 Bob Corker TN
+1 John McCain AZ
+1 Charles Grassley IA X
+1 Richard Lugar IN
+1 Saxby Chambliss AL X
+1 Tom Coburn OK X
+1 Mike Crapo ID
+1 Lindsey Graham SC X
+1 Orin Hatch UT X
+1 John Kyl AZ
+1 Jeff Sessions AL X
I calling 67 votes for passage.
Missed some: Those in italics I got wrong. I miscalculated and guessed that the older ones, the dinosaurs, would be more inclined to cross party lines to forge a compromise, knowing the severity of default. They were the holdouts. I missed that entirely. Most of the freshmen fell in line with the spirit of cooperation… All in all, 7 Democrats voted against their president. 28 Republicans fell in behind their president.
States to watch, ones with both senators voting for default…. Alabama, Iowa, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Utah. Don’t drink any water imported from these five states.
The 19-year old was recently at an Anchorage bar where her Dancing with the Stars partner Mark Ballas performed. However, the Palin family attorney says that Bristol was with two people over 21, ate food and did not consume any alcohol.
(Point is: I give up ) If no one else wants to talk about the issues, especially when it comes to Christine O’Donnell, then why should I bother. Apparently our children’s future will be decided by what our candidates eat. not by what they say, do, or to whom they owe money…
Has anyone talked about O’Donnell’s platform? No?
We vote in 31 days.
There were seven fights today at Shue-Medill Middle School on Kirkwood Highway. The Christina School District is responsible for that location…
Due to privacy restrictions details are sketchy, but this is what we do know…
Seven Fights in one school of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders… Why? Report cards went out last Friday. The physical parental responses to some of them, no doubt pushed these kids over the edge.
One took place in a math class. The math teacher (female) at great harm to herself, stepped in, broke it up, ending it by dragging the 7th grade perpetrator, a known bully, in a headlock down the hall… Hopefully after turning the corner, out of sight, she body-slammed his head three or four times into the one of the concrete walls..
But the most disgraceful, took place in the cafeteria, at a special event honoring those students who made the honor roll this past marking period… Into the event walks a previously suspended student, who previously had to be pulled off a school bus for threatening to kill the bus driver… Yes, seventh grade… Honor roll? Not even close…
She walks up to a seventh grade female student, and says… (of course) “You’re sitting in my seat.” Now this entire event could have been prevented had the girl gotten up from sitting with her friends who she had handpicked to have around her, and moved to another spot. Instead, she politely said… “Sorry, no thanks. I’m sitting here..” The bully says: “I going to fucking strangle you. I’m going to beat the shit out of you!” Without warning, she slams her little seventh grade face into the table, grabs her long auburn hair, pulls her backwards off the bench on to the floor and begins stomping the body. She stomps the body from one end to the other, ending at the face… The screams of the victim are horrendous. Innocent mouths are frozen open while the violence takes place. No adult yet moves to interfere. Knowing that she has more time, the bully jumps up, bends her knees, and drops her entire body weight onto the, by now, whimpering body laying listless on the floor. With fists one fourth the size of her victim’s small head, she begins pounding all her force into the facial regions… By now there is no resistance.. The beating continues unabated for quite a few minutes. After eternity, with only icy silence responding to each bone breaking blow, the bully grabs the hair and begins dragging the body down the floor between the tables… Showing off her trophy…. The victim was reported to have blood flowing out of both her eyes.
It happened this afternoon…
The previous incident involving this bully, involved this same girl beating up three Hispanic children on a schoolbus, causing the bus to stop, a school crises official to arrive, and only because of an outside concerned parents call, were the police called… The police quickly resolved the issue, putting the girl in handcuffs and taking her away.
So why was she allowed back in school?
So why was no adult monitoring the honor student event?
So why did seven fights take place in one day at Shue- Medill Middle School: a school of only sixth, seventh, and eighth graders?
There is only one omnipresent reason….
Yes, yes… I know there will be some out there who say it’s the schools fault… After all, they are the most easily sued to reclaim damages…. But anyone working, visiting, or who happens to assist as a family member in that school, cannot without putting superglue on their tongue, forever adhering it to the inside of their cheek, say that school officials are at fault… Today was an aberration; one day out of almost fifty school days so far. Forty nine of those days they got things right….. We have to remember that fact as our blood boils over…. Forty nine days they got things right…
Yes, yes… I know there will be those, especially who deal with school kids on a daily basis, who say it’s the parents fault… They have a lot going for their argument. You can’t teach a hungry kid. You can’t teach an emotionally disturbed kid. You can’t teach a drug addicted kid. You can’t teach a kid who never receives love from a parent… You just can’t do it in a classroom setting…
In going down the road of public education, we decided that our society as a whole benefited better from giving everyone opportunity to better themselves, instead of limiting that opportunity to just a few children with wealthy parents.. If you look at the large picture, that was probably the proper avenue to take. Of course when you buy apples by the bag instead of the hand picking ones off the display, you will most likely encounter a couple of rotten ones… And what do you do with a rotten apple? Put it back in the sun to ripen?
Ah, yes, yes, there will be those who will blame the system. They say it’s our school system, our Department of Education, or lack of it that drove us down this path… Segregation and its subsequent desegregation policies ruined New Castle County schools above the canal. That is fact. Those of us growing up through neighborhood schools, can certainly sense the futility a very young child must feel to be abandoned on a bus and shipped fifteen miles away, far from the reach of anyone whom he could call for help if subject to something say like ….. the threats of a bully. Also cutting back the amount of money spent on education so the state could buy up Garrison Lake Golf course or the MBNA buildings in downtown Wilmington a few years back, certainly didn’t help… Who knows? One extra dollar at the proper time could have changed that one bully’s perspective at an earlier point in life, making them choose to venture down a different path…. but then again, perhaps it couldn’t: one never knows for sure……However anyone with common sense knows that a system that dumbs down education to it’s lowest level in order to maximize the numbers of those that “get it”, unfortunately has some dumb people roaming its halls. Shouldn’t we be focused on educating our brightest to compete in a global economy, instead of holding them to the standards we adopted to get the most people through our doors with a diploma? There is a lot of credence to saying it’s the system’s fault…
So of the three, whose fault is it?
It is to some extent, yours. But most of all, it is mine…
I never realized it until today… For until everybody cares, the same stuff will go on… Everyone involved in today’s educational environment, is just simply trying to survive. Sticking their head out, is dangerous to their careers. And you and I put them out there with no support, no backing, and most of all when they flounder, we yell at them, especially if it is not their fault!… The most we ever do is mutter a “tsk tsk.”, call for a firing, yell silly slogans at a school board meeting, or post our outrage for public perusal… But none of us take any direct responsibility… Myself included… Today I’m sick I didn’t intervene a month ago. I had the means; but not the will. It seemed like overkill then.
Today’s event could have been prevented… In fact, with appropriate action, most of today’s school violence COULD be prevented… Not however by enforcing the law… but by handling such situation, outside the law… It’s time to rethink our values here.
99.99% of school bullying is caused by students who are abused by their parents… Yeah. 99.99% of you reading this had decent parents. You don’t know what it feels like at age 7 to take the full brunt of punches from your drunken father.. You don’t know what having to perform oral sex on a family member does to your value system. You don’t know now, do you? Fortunately I don’t either. But one can see that anyone coming from this environment has nothing to fear from walking into a crowded room and beating the shit out of a random target. One can see, that brutalizing a tiny little girl, can be seen as the preferable course of action, especially if it’s parental approval staves off one beating that week, when one gets home….
How can we blame a little kid who comes from such an environment? Even as enlightened as we think we are, as a society we are pretty stupid when it comes to such handling of real life situations…
Here is how our own national history shows us how it can be fixed….
A band of thirty, to a hundred concerned masked Shue-Medill parents, each carrying AK-47’s, handguns, shotguns, grenades, knives, or anything else protected under the second amendment, all show up armed to the teeth at the house of the parents of this bully… Using some old one by fours, sprinkled with kerosene, they construct a structure in the shape of an apple ( for teachers) and ignite it… Armed roadblocks are set up around the perimeter to keep local police informed so they stay away.
The spokesman then calls the parent out for a conversation… The parent always comes out, choosing whether to come before or after he is given the option of having his house set afire. The parent is allowed a short time to persuade the rabble that he will personally insure that his kid does not beat up another single person. The parent is given a short time to comprehend the consequences of what will happen to him or her if their child does not follow directions… The listening rabble then makes a collective decision that has a life-or-death consequence for that parent…
THAT is an “effective” solution.. THAT fixes the problem… THAT should have been done the first time this bully made her first mark. So who were those masked people who broke the law? Hmmmm. No one seems to know …….. Guess they can’t be prosecuted then….
Yes, there are other methods to be considered. Walking up behind the unsuspecting parent and slamming a baseball bat into the back of his medulla… Driving by their house and emptying thirty five rounds…. Pouring gasoline and setting a match to their car…. However, these are only effective if a direct correlation gets be made between the compensatory violence, and the action taken by that parent upon their child… But each of these alternatives, lacks the chill of realizing just how perverted our society sees that parent’s actions.. Each of these minor alternatives yields to a “tit for tat”, and instead stopping the violence they almost justify the escalation of it, simply because the parent himself (who has always thought he’s above the law anyway), now feels he has become the victim….
The idea is to stop parents from beating their children… To be clear, I’m not talking about spanking. I’m talking about leaving a child unconscious on the floor. Our government is stymied and under current law, cannot be effective at prevention.. It is effective prosecuting the death of the child.. As citizens, by taking direct action like the one mentioned above, by going beyond the incapacity of the law, we can get results …
Does it work?
The effectiveness of such actions can be seen anytime police investigate crimes between 4th and 30th Streets in Wilmington…The criminal element uses these tactics effectively to suppress tattling. No one ever sees anything up there… Must have more fog than London….
So if we impose a tremendous and costly price for beating or molesting a child, then begin to take effective steps to stop that action. And if that action stops, then those children do not have to take their suppressed rage on unsuspecting kids who always happen to be much smaller than themselves….
Are you mad? Then ask yourself what you have done lately? Nothing? How then can you blame others when you yourself have not raised a little finger?
Like me, you are the problem… Today we wake up. It’s time we do something.
Pray for us.