|
Next
Abate of Florida State Meeting
Respect
the person who has seen the Dark side of motorcycling and
lived.
LA
gangbanger photos
Areola
How
to be a good Democrat
Michael
Moron
Buffalo
Field Campaign
Ben
Stein
Surprise
SOTD
"The
difference between the almost right word and the right word
is really a large matter—’tis the difference between the
lightning-bug and the lightning." - Mark Twain
The opposite of a
correct statement is a false statement.
The opposite of a profound truth may well be another
profound truth.
Niels Bohr (1885-1962), physicist
"Beware the man
of one book."
Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274), Theologian,
philosopher
Life is not a
journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely
in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in
broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly
proclaiming:
WOW - What a Ride!"
"Consciously or
unconsciously we all strive to make the kind of a world we
like."
Oliver Wendell Holmes
"We Lakota have
a close relationship to the buffalo. He is our brother. You
can't understand about nature, about the feeling we have
toward it, unless you understand how close we were to the
buffalo. That animal was almost like a part of ourselves,
part of our souls." Lame Deer, Lakota
Disclaimer
R.I.P
Serving the
biker community since 10-15-01
Scars are tattoos
with better stories
Drug free since
1-01-87
Webmaster
Subscribe
While being pro-club
by nature I do not to belong to any club.
|
Some people can't wait till next
lawn mowing season.
| |
A president of his homeowners association in a Dallas, Texas suburb was having a terrible problem with litter near some of his association's homes. The reason is that six very large, luxurious new houses are being built right next to their community.
The trash was coming from the Mexican laborers working at the construction sites and included bags from McDonald's, Burger King and 7-11, plus coffee cups, napkins, cigarette butts, coke cans, empty bottles, etc. He went to see the site supervisor and even the general contractor, politely urging them to get their workers not to litter the neighborhood, to no avail. He called the city, county, and police and got no help there either.
So here's what his community did. They organized about twenty folks, named themselves The 'Inner Neighborhood Services' group and arranged to go out at lunch time and 'police' the trash themselves. It is what they did while picking up the trash that is so hilarious.
They bought navy blue baseball caps and had the initials 'INS' embroidered in gold on the caps.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand what they hoped people might mistakenly think the letters really stand for.
After the Inner Neighborhood Services group's first lunch time pickup detail, with all of them wearing their caps and some carrying cameras, 46 out of the total of 68 construction workers did not show up for work the next morning -- and haven't come back yet.
It has been ten days now. The General Contractor, I'm told, is madder than hell, but can't say anything publicly because he could be busted for hiring illegal aliens. Wallace and his bunch can't be accused of impersonating federal personnel, because they have the official name of the group recorded in their homeowner association minutes along with a notation about the vote to approve formation of the new subcommittee -- and besides, they informed the INS in advance of their plans and according to Wallace, the INS said basically, 'Have at it!' SO, FOLKS, I THINK YOU COULD SAY THAT TEXAS INGENUITY TRIUMPHS AGAIN!
|
By Michael Kanellos
Story last modified Tue Nov 27 07:58:22 PST 2007 Some scientists have proposed compressing carbon dioxide and sticking it in underground caves as a way to cut down on greenhouse gases. Joe David Jones wants to make baking soda out of it.
Jones, the founder and CEO of Skyonic, has come up with an industrial process called SkyMine that captures 90 percent of the carbon dioxide coming out of smoke stacks and mixes it with sodium hydroxide to make sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda. The energy required for the reaction to turn the chemicals into baking soda comes from the waste heat from the factory.
"It is cleaner than food-grade (baking soda)," he said.
The system also removes 97 percent of the heavy metals, as well as most of the sulfur and nitrogen compounds, Jones said.
Luminant, a utility formerly known as TXU, installed a pilot version of the system at its Big Brown Steam Electric Station in Fairfield, Texas, last year.
Skyonic, meanwhile, hopes to install a system that will consume the greenhouse gas output of a large--500 megawatts or so--power plant around 2009. Skyonic is currently designing one of these large systems.
"It has been working pretty well. It does present a potential solution to emissions," said a representative for
Luminant. "But right now there is still a lot of work to be done."
If the concept works on a grand scale, it could help change some of the pernicious economics and daunting engineering challenges surrounding carbon capture and sequestration.
Carbon capture likely will be required to curb global warming, according to many scientists and companies that are currently experimenting with ways to effectively bury or fix greenhouse gases as they come out of smokestacks.
Coal accounted for 26 percent of energy consumed in 2004 worldwide, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, and will grow to 28 percent by 2030. Coal also accounted for 39 percent of carbon dioxide in 2004 (behind oil) but is expected to pass oil for the No. 1 spot in 2010.
What about replacing every incandescent bulb in America with compact fluorescents? The benefits are eradicated by the carbon dioxide emitted by two coal-fired plants over a year, according to Ed
Mazria, founder of Architecture
2030, a nonprofit that encourages builders, suppliers, and architects to move toward making carbon-neutral buildings by 2030.
Unfortunately, a lot of the proposed solutions for sequestration involve large amounts of capital and risk. If you bury carbon dioxide underground, it could always leak out. Other ideas include pumping it into underground saline aquifers or porous rock formations.
Because it's a solid, storing baking soda is simply
easier, and it allows greenhouse gas emitters to store
a lot of carbon in one place. The stuff piles up: A
500-megawatt power plant will produce approximately
338,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year. Multiply that
weight by 1.9 and you get the number of tons of baking
soda that the plant will produce. Still, it can be
sold, stored in containers, used for landfill or
buried in abandoned mines.
"If you can use the waste heat, it strikes me as a potentially feasible approach," said Alex Farrell, an assistant professor in the energy and resources group at the University of California at Berkeley. "I'm not willing to throw any of the ideas out yet."
|
On top of
that, the byproducts of the different
reactions--chlorine, baking soda, hydrogen (a
byproduct from making the sodium hydroxide that gets
mixed with the carbon dioxide), and chlorine--can be
sold to industrial users. In all likelihood, the
chlorine and hydrogen will have a higher market value
than the baking soda, but baking soda does have its
buyers. It is often used as an industrial abrasive.
Besides, baking soda today gets mined--an expensive
process. Skyonic's byproduct would obviate the need to
dig holes in the ground.
Other start-ups are trying to develop salable products
out of carbon dioxide. Greenfuel Technologies wants to
capture carbon dioxide and feed it to algae farms.
Greenfuel then sells the algae to biodiesel
manufacturers.
Now on News.com Global warming fix may be in baking
soda Windows XP outshines Vista in benchmarking test
Black Friday's hottest gadget buys Extra: Greenpeace
slams Microsoft, Nintendo over toxic consoles Making
biodiesel from algae, though, remains in the
experimental stage. Similarly, Novomer wants to turn
carbon dioxide into plastics, while a few other
start-ups are coming up with liquid fuels derived from
the gas.
These approaches, however, result in byproducts that
are more experimental than cranking out baking
soda.
Greenfuel, for instance, has been forced to delay a
prototype in Arizona.
There's another benefit to Skyonic's system, Jones
said. Because the system captures metals and acid
gases, it can replace the $400 million scrubbers that
power plants currently have to install. Skyonic's
system will probably cost about the same amount as a
scrubber. Although the capital budget will be equal,
power plant owners will get a salable byproduct and
avoid carbon taxes, which may be imposed in the
future.
Jones, a chemical engineer, came up with the idea for
the company while watching TV with his sons. The
Discovery Channel had a show about traveling to Mars,
and experts offered up their ideas for getting rid of
carbon dioxide. Jones told his sons that the experts
had it wrong. Creating sodium bicarbonate would
probably be the best solution.
He then went to his PC and began to research the
subject on Google. He didn't find a lot of answers,
but one posting referred to a 1973 textbook Jones
remembered. He'd bought it for a class at the
University of Texas. In fact, it was on the shelf
right behind him.
He opened it up to the relevant page and there was the
passage he wanted, underlined years earlier by Jones
himself.
Copyright ©1995-2007 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights
reserved.
If you have gum stuck on a shoe or clothing, place the item that has the gum on it in the freezer. When the gum is frozen, it can be dislodged easily. IF there's gum on your floor or carpet, freeze the area with an ice pack and scrape the gum off when it's frozen.
|
| AMES, Iowa, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists have developed a technology that can detect a single molecule of the virus associated with female cervical cancer. Iowa State
University Professor Edward Yeung and colleagues said their
achievement represents a significant improvement over the current test for the human papillomavirus that requires 10 to 50 virus molecules for detection. "We are always interested in detecting smaller and smaller amounts of material at lower and lower concentrations," Yeung said. "Detecting lower lev- els means earlier diagnosis." The Centers for Disease Con- trol and Prevention reports the human papillomavirus is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections in the United States, infecting about 6.2 million Americans every year. Yeung said single molecule detection of the virus could help women and families decide to be vaccinated. He said vaccines administered after such early detection could still have time to stop the virus. |
The Word of the Day for November 27 is:
clairvoyant \klair-VOI-unt\ adjective
1 : having the ability to see beyond the range of ordinary perception
*2 : of or relating to the power or faculty of discerning objects not present to the senses
Example sentence:
Minna has such an uncanny ability to predict which books will be bestsellers, I’d swear she’s clairvoyant.
Did you know?
In French, "clairvoyant" literally means "clear-seeing," mentally or optically. The term made a brief appearance in English in the 17th century, as an adjective suggesting a keen sense of perception, but it did not become firmly established in the language until the 19th century. Today we most often apply this adjective to someone who essentially has ESP, an unexplainable ability to know or perceive things that others cannot.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
|
By Ken Ritter ASSOCIATED PRESS
6:10 p.m. November 19, 2007 LAS VEGAS – Six current and former Mongols motorcycle club members pleaded guilty Monday to reduced charges and avoided trial in a deadly brawl with rival Hells Angels during a biker rally.
The agreements capped more than five years of state and federal prosecutions from the 2002 casino shooting that was captured on dramatic surveillance video footage.
It means that none of the 48 defendants identified, apprehended and hauled into court from either motorcycle club will serve more than five years in prison in the melee, which left two Hells Angels and one Mongols member dead and at least a dozen people hurt at the Harrah's Laughlin hotel-casino.
“This resolves the incident out of Laughlin,” said Joseph Abood, lawyer for Pedro Martinez Jr., a Mongols defendant who could be released within months after being credited for time served. Martinez has been in custody since his arrest shortly after the brawl.
Martinez and Alexander Alcantar, Kenneth Dysart, Benjamin Leyva, Roger Pinney and Walter Ramirez, all from Southern California, had faced trial Nov. 26 on 12 charges including murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, battery and assault with a deadly weapon. Each faced a possible sentence of life in prison on the murder charge.
Under the pleas entered before Clark County District Judge Michelle Leavitt, most of those now free on bond can seek probation at sentencing in January.
Alcantar, 34, of Los Angeles, pleaded guilty to two felony counts of manslaughter in the slayings of Hells Angels members Jeramie Dean Bell, 27, of Hughson, Calif., and Robert Emmet Tumelty, 50, of Stockton, Calif.
Alcantar, who was stabbed and shot during the fighting, was promised a sentence of no more than 18 to 45 months in state prison under terms of his written plea deal.
“I shot two men,” he told the judge when asked what he was pleading guilty to.
Prosecutor William Kephart said outside court that it would have been difficult to convince a jury that Alcantar was not acting in self-defense. Prosecutors think Bell fatally stabbed Mongols member Anthony Salvador Barrera, 43, of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.
Dysart, 45, pleaded guilty to discharging a firearm at or into a structure, a felony, in return for a prison sentence of
12 to 30 months. Dysart had been accused of firing one shot and attempting to shoot more when his handgun jammed.
Pinney, 63, of Newport Beach, Calif., pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit battery or provoking commission of breach of the peace, a gross misdemeanor carrying the possibility of up to one year in county jail.
Pinney, a former Mongols president who left the club after the brawl, was described by prosecutors as trying to mediate peace with a top Hells Angels club official before violence erupted.
Martinez, 28, pleaded guilty to battery with a deadly weapon causing substantial bodily harm, a felony, in return for a promised sentence of two to five years in prison. Martinez was accused of shooting and wounding a Hells Angels member.
Ramirez, 34, pleaded guilty to accessory to commit voluntary manslaughter, a felony, with a possible sentence of one to five years in prison. Ramirez was accused of helping Alcantar dispose of bloodstained clothing and flee the casino.
Benjamin Leyva, 35, of Bakersfield, Calif., pleaded guilty to battery with a deadly weapon, a felony, in return for a promised sentence of 12 to 30 months in prison. He'll get 24 months credit for time served, said his lawyer, Amy Chelini.
“I hit somebody over the head with a bottle,” Leyva told the judge.
Monday's pleas came after a plea deal in October 2006 ended a federal racketeering trial and resolved state charges against six Hells Angels members.
The Hells Angels pleaded to individual battery in aid of racketeering charges that spared their club being branded a criminal enterprise. Most received sentences of about 30 months in prison.
Federal prosecutors dropped charges against 36 other Hells Angels from five states originally named in the federal case. No Hells Angels members were charged with murder, and no current or former Mongols members were charged in the federal case.
“The amazing thing here is that everyone who was hurt had a connection with these groups,” said Kephart. “I don't know how innocent people weren't hurt.” Hells Angels member Frederick Donahue remains a fugitive on murder and attempted murder charges, and Kephart said he will be prosecuted if he is apprehended.
The brawl marred the 2002 Laughlin River Run motorcycle rally, and prompted strict police enforcement at the event held annually in the Colorado River resort town about 100 miles southeast of Las Vegas.
|
Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 4:45 PM CST Harley-Davidson promotes
executives The Business Journal of Milwaukee Harley-Davidson Inc. said Tuesday that it has promoted seven of its executives under a recently announced organizational restructuring.
The Milwaukee-based heavyweight motorcycle manufacturer promoted Dave Bozeman, 39, to vice president, advanced manufacturing, responsible for developing and overseeing the implementation of advanced manufacturing technology. Bozeman previously was vice president and general manager, Capitol Drive powertrain operations and advanced manufacturing.
Bill Davidson, 46, was promoted to vice president, core customer marketing. He will lead marketing activities to current Harley-Davidson customers. Davidson, the former director, motorcycle product development, is the great grandson of founder William Davidson, and the son of senior vice president and chief styling officer William "Willie G." Davidson.
Bob Farchione, 57, was promoted from general manager of parts and accessories to vice president, engineering platform teams. Farchione is responsible for the engineering and product development efforts associated with Harley-Davidson motorcycle platforms from concept to manufacturing.
Pat Keller, 55, was promoted to vice president, Engineering Centers of Expertise. Keller is responsible for the engineering and product development efforts associated with major Harley-Davidson motorcycle systems.
Former managing director, Asia Pacific and Latin America, Jeff
Merten, 43, was promoted to vice president, North American sales, and is responsible for the revenue, sales objectives and ongoing development of the U.S. and Canadian markets for all motorcycles, parts and accessories and general merchandise.
Patrick Smith, 47, was promoted to vice president, general merchandise, and is responsible for general merchandise brand direction.
Michael Van der Sande, 41, was promoted to vice president and managing director, Harley-Davidson Europe and will continue to lead the sales, marketing and distribution activities for Harley-Davidson and Buell motorcycles, parts and accessories and MotorClothes throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
All contents of this site © American City Business Journals Inc. All rights reserved.
|
|
Young
riders pick a 
