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On Monday night, my social media blew up… “I’ve seen hate and bigots but I’ve never seen someone so sickening as I saw tonight (at the University of Delaware)…”.
Who was speaking? After a couple of clicks I found it was MILO, a Breitbart gay who supports Donald Trump. His opening line was “there are three genders: male, female, and retarded…”
On Tuesday I heard afterward how Newark had taken down his fliers off telephone poles. Perusing the Breitbart site I saw several stories there about the UD event.
You can watch it here;
Invited by The College Republicans and the Delaware Federation of College Republicans, he was allowed by the University to speak despite many other groups objections.
“I will close with this advice. Never feel bad for mocking a transgender person. It is our job to point out their absurdity, to not make the problem worse by pretending they are normal. Much like fat-shaming, if our mockery drives them to get the help they need, we may save their life.” was the closing argument.
Delaware’s best know transgender advocate responded:
This event caused controversy in the local branch of the Republican party.
Delaware GOP spokesman John Fluharty, who is gay, said the College Republicans’ choice to bring “shock jock” Yiannopoulos showed poor judgement.
On Amy Cherry’s piece on WDEL, he continues. “Andrew Lipman, head of the Delaware Federation of College Republicans, when I spoke to him, was neither open to our request, or sorry for the harm he caused our party….”
And at this point I am finally going to get to my point in this article. Those following me know I have given Republicans a taunting hard time (similar to MILO here), for saying they are diversifying their party outside the normal Republican definition, and failing to abandon the head of their party who represents the exact opposite of the words they say..
It is hypocritical to say you are open to Hispanics when your presidential candidate is saying all 15 million will be deported.. That is almost comical and so I commented as such.
But hearing this exchange on WDEL caused me to see something different. The tactic taken by the leadership of the adult Delaware Republican Party probably should be applauded, not disparaged. These type of things take time to ferment and develop. Most likely the seeds of this policy towards inclusion and openness were started back when all assumed Jeb Bush would be their candidate. They were surprised as most of us, that Donald Trump grabbed the title first and held on to the lead.
But what they did was brave and probably the perfect response to racism.. We know that children tend to take the attitudes of their parents while growing up. At some mature point, they either choose to stay with them, or switch… But whatever the parents believe and they absorb while growing up, is basically what they believe. It is not determined by melanin, or the degree of slant on one’s eyes. Race is an artificial categorization, one we imposed to put people in our boxes, so it is easier for us to categorize them.
A black growing up in an environment dominated by investment banking, will tend to be for policies that make sense to investment bankers, not a life he has never seen, but which is populated by most of those sharing the color of his skin.
A Hispanic growing up in a fundamentalist religious sect will obviously share the ideals of that sect more than he will share the values of others in a completely different environment growing up.
And this is what must happen if we are to move to a race-equal society, where race no longer matters because everyone is seen as an individual. not a member of one race or another. Most likely in all of us within our own race, we don’t make distinctions like:… “Oh, she will have Republican values because she lives in Limestone Hills”. That is ridiculous. Instead we meet them, talk to them, and only then, we pigeon hole or classify them as this type or that type, based on their individuality….
So shouldn’t we do that with all people, all races?
Which is why this openness in the Delaware Republican party should be encouraged and flamed into something exciting and liberating. The sad thing, is that since it is so new, only two among them have chosen the less-traveled path of throwing off the bigotry of their leader, and making political hay out of the opportunity to promote their brave new path. All the rest took the path instead, of obfuscating this new idea by insisting on the same old prejudice by which they have always been historically tainted…
So I did want to illustrate the fine line and explain though I will continue to bash the Republicans’ moral lassitude for political expediency, it was a good plan and one I hope they continue… just learn that character is more important than following the party… When your party is wrong, sticking with it against your convictions, makes you look wrong whether you are or not…
It lost the ground it was to be built upon. Completely outside the political spectrum, the University of Delaware decided in its own best interest, that the data center was too much of a problem.
It pulled the lease.
The data center can still go forward…. It just now needs another piece of ground…. But for now though, Newark residents will not die an earlier death.
That is something worth celebrating….
It is time to look forward into building a fusion reaction research center in that same spot…. courtesy of everyone’s friend, the Federal Government….
In an overwhelming vote of no confidence aimed directly at the leadership of UD President Harker, the entire faculty Senate (minus 8 abstentions due to diarrhea), voted against the killing of all babies under 2 years of age residing in Newark…(due to lung cancer in their future)
It is nice to be able to believe in the University of Delaware again, even if not the president….( though it was getting hard there with all the dead end policies that Harker has led this school down the last several years….. ruining the atmosphere for alumni at Delaware sports events, eradicating the track team, and now, putting a toxic smokestack in the heart of Downtown Newark.)
Let that vote sink in….
43 to………… NOTHING !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nobody. I mean nobody, wants this power plant that Governor Markell, and the Delaware Chamber of Commerce is trying to ram down Newark’s throat…
43 to…………….NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!
It appears the TDC has run aground as did every Revolutionary warship that tried to attack up the Delaware Bay……
Newark’s newest populist hero, Mark Morehead, has found new discrepancies. The problems are in violation of the project’s previously-awarded city zoning verification….
There are four tables listing data….
A. There are several basic arithmetic errors in the first table.. Apparently the engineer fabricating them was trained by Common Core, and can’t do basic math. (Common Core is 85% inferior to the mathematical teaching methods of the 70’s,80’s, and 90’s).
B. TDC lacks the ability to complete the power plant project effectively, Can anyone trust their life to someone who can’t add 20 + 20?
D. Of the four interlocking tables submitted by TDC, the data does not match. It fluctuates in all four to achieve whatever result the TDC wishes to convey….
E Despite initial claims of excess energy to be sold out to the grid, the actual plans show that in phase one there is a deficit of 7.0 MW less than is necessary… meaing the Data center will be stealing power from Newark proper, and esculating everyones electrical rates through the roof… In phase 2 there is even more of a deficit, 17.4 MW less than required, which takes half of Newark proper’s hourly need of 34 Mw just to keep the lights on!
F. No one but stupid builds a power plant in the middle of town. But if they did happen to do so, they would require at least 30% extra power to be given to the town in payment. The figures show this will not happen, and this was the prime contingent for moving forward with the project in the first place… It is like you go to ShopRite and buy coffee and after getting rung up, you say: “unh, unh, no way. I want it for free. I’m not paying you”… hoping they will be too busy to make a fuss and just say “get outta here.” We have a word for that in the English language. It is: criminal.
G. The university which allegedly has in its employee, some professors, did not have anyone double check the numbers before signing on… Hmmm. Or maybe they did, and THAT is why they are being so coy and secretive about it? Hmmm.
The Council voted to uphold the people’s right to know, and stopped the forward movement of the Data Center… These are you heroes. Rob Gifford, Mark Morehead, Polly Sierer, Luke Chapman and Marge Hadden …..
Here is pure unadulterated evil… Vince D’Anna…
It would be a rather wise idea to form a class action suit against Vince D’Anna in regards to potential damages he brings to all Newark’s citizens, and thereby force him to make a simple choice between either jail time or great personnel financial loss, or … turning to state’s evidence and informing us of all the corruption and criminal action of which he knows. We have multiple lawyers, and I’m sure for the sake of their children, they would be willing to spend 5 hours of personal time perusing Nancy’s blog for data leading to a simple filing… It’s for our kids, for heaven’s sakes….
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.
It used to cost 40 pieces of silver. Now it costs $45,000 dollars.
Apparently there was a giant rally at the Chrysler Plant in support of the power plant. A quick check of car plates (and bumper stickers) showed that Union members from Philly, New Jersey, Maryland were there. Surprisingly, none identifiable from Delaware were there. The surprisingly few Delaware plates that were there, all were black, and stuck on the back of $70,000 cars or trucks…
It appeared to be an attempt to show Newark that lots of people still support putting in the largest power boiler in the state right next (only 20 Wal*Mart aisles or 200 feet) to houses with kids and dogs and cats playing in the yard….
But none of this crowd came to all the public sessions. All those were 20 to 1 against installing the power plant.
So vans of strange people who talked funny were roaming Newark neighborhoods last Saturday and Sunday. They put on two door hangers... One in support of the power plant. One in support of Polly Sierer, candidate for mayor.
Polly Sierer denies she knows who is doing it… “I wish they’d stop she says…” Well, one person whose name is on the pamphlets, is Mike Mullens. The pamphlet says for further information, contact the Delaware Department of Elections. A lot of people did.
The Department of Elections said…”we know nothing of this. Nothing at all”… Most politicos just shrugged and said, “well they got us; they filed under the window of the 8 day reporting, so we will have to wait for the year’s end filing to see who was putting up all this money… It has to be a lot of money.
Very late Sunday night,last night, someone actually looked up the code and discovered that Bob Gilligan changed it last year. And it was signed by Jack Markell. After my memory was jogged, I can now remember El Sonambulo discussing it on Al Mascitti’s show… They have 24 hours to contact the Department of Elections upon either spending or receiving money.
They scrambled all night and most of the day, trying to create a political action committee, get officers in line, get everyone’s story straight, and then file with the Elections Office… There is nothing still on the websites. The election is today….
Finally just before closing yesterday, around 4:46 pm, those who emailed request, begin to get their answers….
The PAC is worth $45,000! Prior to this notice, Polly’s 8 day report shows the total expenditures at around $5,000.… The PAC IS SPENDING 9 TIMES THE AMOUNT OF ANY CANDIDATE TO THROW THE ELECTION….. It may be throwing it your way if you are a Polly supporter; it is throwing it against you if you are not….
Polly still says she has no idea. The man she is pictured with on the PAC’s piece of literature, former Mayor Vince Funk, also says he has no idea of who is running the PAC that features him on the front page…
Here is what the Department of Elections told us….
Among its founding board members is Andrew Lubin, University of Delaware’s real estate director, who is responsible for the development of the STAR Campus….
It is safe to assume, that the University of Delaware is probably putting in $45,000 dollars to swing Newark’s election, in order to get the go ahead from Newark to build the largest gas boiler in Delaware…. nine times the amount any other candidate can raise….
The University of Delaware put up the money, and for cover, had the Delaware and New Castle Chambers of Commerce, the 100 Club, the Delaware Contractors Association, the Home Builder’s Association, Delaware Realitors Association, and a dummy corporation called DEED, for Delawareans for Environmental and Economic Development… a shill sounding name and website if I’ve ever knew one…. It had all these companies pile on…
Why not, to them it was free.
But they all got caught because of Gilligan’s law…
The question is, Newark… what are you going to do about it? Stand there and take it, let the University buy your vote as if you don’t matter, without you even considering any of the alternative?
Or……. you can set them back by voting for Amy Roe…. She is not for sale… nor is she someone who can be pushed around or bullied, she will have your backs…
I happen to think it is a pretty easy choice, but the beauty of democracy is that each one of you gets to decide… Your decision sets in stone a power plant for 75 years… Good luck Newark… As of 7am this morning, everything is riding on you…..
More later. Too soon to comment. Here are the briefs…..
Delaware already has data centers. Each has 5 people per shift and operates across 3 shifts so roughly 24 per each are employed… So those 24 jobs added to the Newark economy, need to be balanced against the amount of money a loud data center will drive away. Does it lower home value? One would think, and would that total lowering of home values due to a “twenty four hour conversation”, cost the city more than would 24 jobs? Most likely, yes.
Secondly, Newark Delaware has recently had a boom of building activity. Main Street West, as well as Delaware Avenue, and don’t forget the University construction on Loering Street. How much increase did all of New Castle County’s businesses get uplifted from all that activity? Building the power plant will employ less.
So when the lobbyists begin promising jobs, remember, in a data center, there are not that many jobs. Computers run themselves.
Furthermore, data centers have issues with getting good help on board.
At a roundtable of Data Center managers, several problems were evident. Good people don’t stay; they jump shift quite often.
One reason they don’t stay is because of job pressure– the pressure to keep data centers on line and up and running all the time. One thing goes wrong, they lose their jobs. Therefore they are on the constant lookout for centers that have the means to avoid those interruption, and therefore provide a higher level of security.
What is known as densities, has increased over the past 5 years immensely.. That is the number of transactions per minute. They are way up due to technological advancements. Which means one small one half-second glitch, would wipe out data for one half of the United States of America .
The roundtable also dipped into carbon emissions. Data Centers use a lot of electricity. More than a town. A data center must have a constant front against accusations it is damaging the environment worse than anything other than a coal plant…
The perfect employee for a data center does not need a college degree nor does he need certification in computers. Actually someone who hacks games and can bypass securities and download copyrighted material, is the perfect candidate recommended to work inside a data center. Sort of turns the world on it’s end, doesn’t it?
So Newark. here is the bottom line. What do you want to do?
Do you want a 240 Megawatt gas turbine power plant next to your domicile, or don’t you? You will have a few people with bacon grease hair, all selling you how great having jobs will be. Just remember they are selling! Just like that guy who promises you the car you buy, can fly to Japan and back. Both are selling.
Looking across the nation, whenever a company comes in, they always say they will hire 200+. If they have their own power plant, it actually is between 30 and 50. In Delaware, the bank’s data centers themselves, usually run a crew of 24 on the average.
So 24 kids making $50,000 nets $1.2 million. If nearby houses lose $10,000 in asking price due to the data center’s twenty-four hour conversation, it would take 120 houses to suck that gain right out of the air. Then every single other house selling under its estimate as well, pulls Newark further into a hole worse off than it is today…..
120 Homes are basically two streets worth.
There are over 100 streets within a radius of one mile from the power plant…
This will create a net loss for Newark, unless the taxes paid by the data center more than make up for the lost revenue the depression of house values will cause over the next 75 years…
But that is just calculations, and calculations don’t mean anything. The bottom line, Newark, is what do you want to do? Do you need more jobs? More traffic? More power outages? More noises? More carbon dioxide? More aggravation?
Don’t be intimidated by the bacon grease lobbyists. They usually only interact with members of the General Assembly who get intimidated rather easily. Stand up to them if you wish. They are just people hired to paint only one side of an issue in glowing colors. Doesn’t mean we have to believe them, especially when we have the Internet that can tell us the truth with two clicks… 🙂
Bottom line, it is what you want to do. Choose to fight it, and if there are enough of you, …. it is not going in….. No one wants to take the blame for depreciating Newark’s house values by $10,000 a pop, if you make it an issue…
Frequently quoted in support of scrapping our current teaching standards, and replacing them with an untested approach, has been the works of one Dr. Louise Moats, a developer for Sopris Learning, a private company that makes money getting schools systems like Delaware’s, to buy its products.
Louise Moat’s writings were predominantly based off an NRP study, yet Dr. Moats appears unfamiliar with the actual findings of the NRP and with the subsequent re-analyses of the studies they examined…
NRP adjusted its earlier enthusiasm and found only a small positive effect for systematic phonics instruction, one that even if it were reliable is, of no practical significance in terms of improving reading achievement.
Yet despite being disproven, today’s educational reformers such as Pat Heffernan’s piece in the News Journal use this as proof that today’s teachers are dumb and don’t know the newest research which teaches reading.
Old educational pros laugh at him because the same controversy swirled in the 70’s.
For this reason we have to change everything!
With SB 51 we are trading the educational excellence of the 31st best educational American school of teacher education, ranked as the University of Delaware was, for a philosophy that has been long discredited…. except by the sellers of programs they promote.
The real question is why? And How… could this happen? How could the everyone be fooled by a false study? How could we scrap the 31st best teaching institution in the top nation for teaching excellence, for an advertisement? How could this get passed without debate?
The problem behind Common Core, or as Mike O rightfully calls the misuse of Common Core, is that all we have are rumors. If the rumors are true we have a disaster in the making. Well, the rumors are true and the test that was turned in to a British Paper (excellent move) proves it.
According to the newspaper that has seen the test,
It’s full of long, dense, off-the-wall nonfiction passages on making wind tunnels, soil formation and studying whales. There are two short stories, both set overseas. And there’s a vague selection from a poem about loneliness that students must interpret before choosing among four answers that contain two arguably correct selections.
Students got 90 minutes to complete the 32-page test, which contained 42 questions based on six written passages.
The News asked testing experts, teachers and parents to analyze the test, which state and city education officials have kept under lock and key. Everyone who saw it was left dumbfounded by the killer questions.
“You might as well just put ‘failure to students’ at the top of the exam,” said Tracy Woodall, a stay-at-home mom whose son is a fifth-grader at Public School 1 in the Bronx. “There’s no way they’re going to pass this.”
The questions on the fifth-grade reading test, designed to test comprehension, were enough to stump a city high-school teacher who reviewed it.
“Have these students had an opportunity to build up to that complexity? The answer is no,” said the teacher, who asked for anonymity for fear of getting sacked. “This test is coming at them like an anvil to their face.”
Aaron Pallas, a testing expert at Columbia University, ran the new fifth-grade exam though a computer analysis program and found that it was actually calibrated for the “middle of sixth grade.” Numerous families boycotted the new exams, and the national teachers union boss called for a moratorium on consequences from the high-stakes tests until they’re better-understood.
We are killing education in America by purposefully making the test so they make children fail, and then use that to fire teachers and close schools because their test results are so poor.
kavips 