XIAM007

Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World

Monday 20 June 2011

Man was caught urinating into an Oregon city reservoir - now city sends 8M gals of treated drinking water down the drain -

Man was caught urinating into an Oregon city reservoir - now city sends 8M gals of treated drinking water down the drain - 




Call it the big flush.
Because a 21-year-old man was caught on a security camera urinating into a city reservoir, Oregon's biggest city is sending 8 million gallons of treated drinking water down the drain.
Portland officials defended the decision Monday, saying they didn't want to send city residents water laced, however infinitesimally, with urine.
Public health officials say, however, that urine is sterile in healthy people and that the urine in the reservoir was so diluted - perhaps a half pint in millions of gallons - that it posed little risk.
Some people in the city, in the suburbs and around the world called the flush an overreaction, especially since animals such as ducks contribute waste routinely and, sometimes, die in the water.
"More than 1 billion people worldwide do not have reliable access to clean drinking water, and here we are tossing away nearly 8 million gallons of water just to appease the ignorant residents who believe their tap water will otherwise turn yellow," read one comment posted on The Oregonian's Website.
Water from the city's five open air reservoirs, all in parks, goes directly to customers. The reservoirs are due to be replaced by underground storage within a decade, a result of federal requirements.
The reservoirs distribute water that flows from glaciers on Mount Hood. It is treated before it goes to the reservoirs for distribution, and then goes directly to consumers.
The reservoirs are drained twice a year for cleaning, and workers have found animal carcasses, paint cans, construction material, fireworks debris and even the plastic bags people use to scoop up after their dogs, said David Shaff, administrator of the city water bureau.
Even so, Shaff said, the yuck factor was the primary reason for the decision to drain the 8 million gallons, at a cost of less than $8,000 to treat it as sewage.
"Nobody wants to drink pee, and I don't want to deal with the 100 people who would be unhappy that I'm serving them pee in their water," he said. Shaff said the security cameras also showed something that's still unidentified was thrown in the water, heightening concern about potential risks.
City Commissioner Randy Leonard, who is in charge of the water bureau, defended the decision, citing a potential public health risk. He said he worried about the possibility of chlamydia or AIDS from blood in urine.
"I'm for taking the most conservative approach," he said.
Dr. Gary Oxman, the county health officer, said the risk was so close to nil that it falls in the "never say never" range. Even with the uncertainty over an object thrown in the water, "that's still a very small risk," he said.
The young man, Josh Seater, told KATU-TV he'd been drinking, was with friends and thought that the reservoir was a sewage treatment plant. He said he felt guilty instantly, and then security guards arrived.
"I knew I did wrong when I did it," he told the station.
In addition to the sewage charge, Shaff said, the flushed water is worth $28,000.
The Mount Hood watershed that supplies the city is brimming this spring, with 8 million gallons flowing through it about every half hour.
"If I lived in Texas, I might have had a different response," he said.

Read more - 
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_URINE_IN_RESERVOIR?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-06-20-17-04-58

A quadriplegic man was forced off a Frontier Airlines plane - had no problem two days earlier flying Frontier -

A quadriplegic man was forced off a Frontier Airlines plane - had no problem two days earlier flying Frontier - 


A quadriplegic man from Fort Collins was forced off a Frontier Airlines plane because a pilot said it wasn't safe for him to fly.
His mother, Kathleen Morris, said there was no problem two days earlier when her son flew Frontier from Denver International Airport to Dallas to attend a family wedding.
But Sunday afternoon, when he boarded in Dallas to come home, John Morris and his family said they were humiliated.

"When a flight attendant saw John strapped in, they said they would have to clear it with the captain," said Kathleen Morris.
She said that her son is a quadriplegic with limited upper body control.
Morris has flown Frontier Airlines in the past, using an airline seat-belt extension to secure his chest and legs to the seat. The extension is normally used by larger passengers who need a longer seat belt to secure their waist.
"But this time, the pilot refused to take off," she said. "So, I said that we wouldn't get off the plane until they figured it out."
Fellow passenger Denny Cannon was seated nearby and overheard that Frontier couldn't use its equipment for medical purposes.
So, he and other upset passengers, offered to help.
"Me and other passengers said, 'Well, sure, use our belts and we'll somehow restrain him and then you won't be using Frontier products," Cannon recalled.
But in the end, to the dismay of other passengers, Frontier called airport police. Three police officers boarded the plane.
The officers told the pilot this was not a law enforcement matter.
"It looks like he's safely restrained," an officer said, according to Kathleen Morris. "This is not an issue for us, because he's not posing a problem for the plane or other passengers."
The captain again refused to take off with Morris onboard.
"He cannot fly. I want him off this plane," the pilot said, according to Kathleen Morris.
"It was humiliating," the mother said. "The officers kept apologizing to me and to John and kept saying, 'This is wrong.'"
A snowboarding accident five years ago left John Morris paralyzed.
The 24-year-old Colorado State University student said he couldn't believe how he was treated on the plane, and he was sorry for the delay the incident caused.
"I felt horrible," he said. "I just felt like I didn't belong. I haven't felt that bad since the accident."
Other passengers wondered why Frontier didn't have policies established for accommodating people with disabilities.
"It was very demoralizing and dehumanizing. It should have been dealt with at the gate, not after he was already boarded," said one passenger.
Frontier spokesman Peter Kowalchuk said the pilot was concerned for the safety of Morris and uncertain whether the seat-belt extension could be used to restrain his legs and torso.
The captain has the ultimate decision on issues regarding passenger safety on a plane, he said.
However, Frontier arranged for the Morris family to take the next flight, and the pilot on that plane had no issues with transporting the disabled man.
"So, one pilot thought that it would not be safe. And another pilot … apparently thought it would not be a threat to anybody's safety," Kowalchuk said.
He said that Federal Aviation Administration and Frontier regulations are unclear on whether the seat-belt extension can be used to restrain a disabled passenger.
"It will require clarity moving forward," he added.
When a passenger has to leave a flight, an incident report is issued, Kowalchuck said.
"I'm sure that this (incident report) will be reviewed, and I'm sure that there will be consideration given to how this was handled," the spokesman said.
Steve Cowell, an aviation safety consultant, told 7NEWS the pilot should have called airline managers for advice on handling the issue.
"It was completely inappropriate of this captain to escalate ... the situation to the level that he did by calling the police," Cowell said. "It really tells me that this captain did not know how to utilize all the resources available to him."
Read more - http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/28291011/detail.html

12 Things That The Mainstream Media Is Being Strangely Quiet About Right Now -

12 Things That The Mainstream Media Is Being Strangely Quiet About Right Now - 


As the mainstream media continues to be obsessed with Anthony Weiner and his bizarre adventures on Twitter, much more serious events are happening around the world that are getting very little attention.  In America today, if the mainstream media does not cover something it is almost as if it never happened. Right now, the worst nuclear disaster in human history continues to unfold in Japan , U.S. nuclear facilities are being threatened by flood waters, the U.S. military is bombing Yemen, gigantic cracks in the earth are appearing all over the globe and the largest wildfire in Arizona history is causing immense devastation.  But Anthony Weiner, Bristol Palin and Miss USA are what the mainstream media want to tell us about and most Americans are buying it.
In times like these, it is more important than ever to think for ourselves.  The corporate-owned mainstream media is not interested in looking out for us.  Rather, they are going to tell us whatever fits with the agenda that their owners are pushing.
That is why more Americans than ever are turning to the alternative media.  Americans are hungry for the truth, and they know that the amount of truth that they get from the mainstream media continues to decline.
The following are 12 things that the mainstream media is being strangely quiet about right now....
#1 The crisis at the Fort Calhoun nuclear facility in Nebraska has received almost no attention in the national mainstream media.
Back on June 7th, there was a fire at Fort Calhoun.  The official story is that the fire was in an electrical switchgear room at the plant.  The facility lost power to a pump that cools the spent fuel pool for approximately 90 minutes.  According to the Omaha Public Power District, the fire was quickly extinguished and no radioactive material was released.
The following sequence of events is directly from the Omaha Public Power District website....
  • There was no such imminent danger with the Fort Calhoun Station spent-fuel pool.
  • Due to a fire in an electrical switchgear room at FCS on the morning of June 7, the plant temporarily lost power to a pump that cools the spent-fuel pool.
  • The fire-suppression system in that switchgear room operated as designed, extinguishing the fire quickly.
  • FCS plant operators switched the spent-fuel pool cooling system to an installed backup pump about 90 minutes after the loss of power.
  • During the interruption of cooling, temperature of the pool increased a few degrees, but the pool was never in danger of boiling.
  • Due to this situation, FCS declared an Alert at about 9:40 a.m. on June 7.
  • An alert is the second-least-serious of four emergency classifications established by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
  • At about 1:15 p.m. on June 7, FCS operators declared they had taken all appropriate measures to safely return to the previously declared Notification of Unusual Event emergency classification. (See first item above.)
But the crisis at Fort Calhoun is not over.  Right now, the nuclear facility at Fort Calhoun is essentially an island. It is surrounded by rising flood waters from the Missouri River.
Officials claim that there is no danger and that they are prepared for the river to rise another ten feet.
The Cooper Nuclear Station in Brownville, Nebraska is also being threatened by rising flood waters.  A "Notification of Unusual Event" was declared at Cooper Nuclear Station this morning at 4:02.  This notification was issued because the Missouri River's water level reached 42.5 feet.
Right now the facility is operating normally and officials don't expect a crisis.
But considering what has been going on at Fukushima, it would be nice if we could have gotten a lot more coverage of these events by the mainstream media.
#2 Most Americans are aware that the U.S. is involved in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.  However, the truth is that the U.S. military is also regularly bombing Yemen and parts of Pakistan.  If you count the countries where the U.S. has special forces and/or covert operatives on the ground, the U.S. is probably "active" in more countries in the Middle East than it is not.  Now there are even persistent rumors that U.S. ground units are being prepared to go into Libya.  Are we watching the early stages of World War 3 unfold before our eyes in slow motion?
#3 The crisis at Fukushima continues to get worse.  Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president, recently made the following statement about the Fukushima disaster....
"Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind"
TEPCO has finally admitted that this disaster has released more radioactive material into the environment than Chernobyl did.  That makes Fukushima the worst nuclear disaster of all time, and it is far from over.
Massive amounts of water is being poured into the spent fuel pools in order to keep them cool.  This is creating "hundreds of thousands of tons of highly radioactive sea water" that has got to go somewhere.  Inevitably much of it will get into the ground and into the sea.
Arnold Gundersen says that the scope of this problem is almost unimaginable....
"TEPCO announced they had a melt through. A melt down is when the fuel collapses to the bottom of the reactor, and a melt through means it has melted through some layers. That blob is incredibly radioactive, and now you have water on top of it. The water picks up enormous amounts of radiation, so you add more water and you are generating hundreds of thousands of tons of highly radioactive water."
The mainstream media is not paying as much attention to Fukushima these days, but that doesn't mean that it is not a major league nightmare.
Elevated levels of radiation are being reported by Japanese bloggers all over eastern Japan.  There are reports of sick children all over the region.  One adviser to the government of Japan says that an area approximately 17 times the size of Manhattan is probably going to be uninhabitable.
Of course the mainstream media has been telling us all along that Fukushima is nothing to be too concerned about and that authorities in Japan have everything under control.
If the mainstream media is not going to tell us the truth, how are they going to continue to have credibility?
#4 Members of Congress continue to mention Christians as a threat to national security.  For example, during a recent Congressional hearing U.S. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee warned that "Christian militants" might try to "bring down the country" and that such groups need to be investigated.
#5 China's eastern province of Zhejiang has experienced that worst flooding that it has seen in 55 years.  2 million people have already been forced to leave their homes.  China has already been having huge problems with their crops over the past few years and this is only going to make things worse.
#6 Thanks to the Dodd-Frank Act, over the counter trading of gold and silver is going to be illegal starting on July 15th.  Or at least that is what some companies apparently now believe.  The following is an excerpt from an email that Forex.com recently sent out to their customers....
Important Account Notice Re: Metals Trading
We wanted to make you aware of some upcoming changes to FOREX.com’s product offering. As a result of the Dodd-Frank Act enacted by US Congress, a new regulation prohibiting US residents from trading over the counter precious metals, including gold and silver, will go into effect on Friday, July 15, 2011.
In conjunction with this new regulation, FOREX.com must discontinue metals trading for US residents on Friday, July 15, 2011 at the close of trading at 5pm ET. As a result, all open metals positions must be closed by July 15, 2011 at 5pm ET.
We encourage you to wind down your trading activity in these products over the next month in anticipation of the new rule, as any open XAU or XAG positions that remain open prior to July 15, 2011 at approximately 5:00 pm ET will be automatically liquidated.
We sincerely regret any inconvenience complying with the new U.S. regulation may cause you. Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact our customer service team.
Sincerely,
The Team at FOREX.com
Apparently, Section 742(a) of the Dodd-Frank Act prohibits anyone "from entering into, or offering to enter into, a transaction in any commodity with a person that is not an eligible contract participant or an eligible commercial entity, on a leveraged or margined basis."
So what impact is this going to have on the gold and silver markets?
Nobody is quite sure yet.
#7 All over the world, huge cracks are appearing for no discernible reason.  For example, a massive crack that is approximately 3 kilometers long recent appeared in southern Peru.  Also, a 500 foot long crack suddenly appeared recently in the state of Michigan.  When you also throw in all of the gigantic sinkholes that have been opening all over the world, it is easy to conclude that the planet is becoming very unstable.
#8 According to U.S. Forest Service officials, the largest wildfire in Arizona state history has now covered more than 500,000 acres.  But based on the coverage it is being given by the mainstream media you would think that it is a non-event.
#9 There are reports that North Korea has tested a "super EMP weapon" which would be capable of taking out most of the U.S. power grid in a single shot.  The North Koreans are apparently about to conduct another nuclear test and that has some Obama administration officials very concerned.
#10 All over the United States, "active shooter drills" are being conducted in our public schools.  Often, most of the students are not told that these drills are fake.  Instead, students often go through hours of terror as they think a hostage situation or a shooting spree is really taking place.
#11 NASA has just launched a "major" preparedness initiative for all NASA personnel.  The following is an excerpt about this plan from NASA's own website....
A major initiative has been placed on Family/Personal Preparedness for all NASA personnel. The NASA Family/Personal Preparedness Program is designed to provide awareness, resources, and tools to the NASA Family (civil servants and contractors) to prepare for an emergency situation. The most important assets in the successful completion of NASA’s mission are our employees’ and their families. We are taking the steps to prepare our workforce, but it is your personal obligation to prepare yourself and your families for emergencies.
#12 Over the past week over 40 temporary "no fly zones" have been declared by the FAA.  This is very highly unusual.  Nobody seems to know exactly why this is happening.
So what do all of these things mean?
It would be nice if the mainstream media would examine some of these important issues more closely and do some honest reporting on them.
Read more -