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Stimply,

My condolences go out to you.

The King is Dead

KJ Sawka Sample Pack Video from Hospital Records on Vimeo.

By Alexa Schirtzinger in News You Can Actually Use, ActuallyFriday, Jun. 12 2009 @ 9:48AM
In April, public ire rose when Texas Industries scored a 10-year air permit renewal -- no public comment period required -- for its notoriously toxic Midlothian cement operation. The renewal came with one condition: TXI's cement kilns, the only ones in North Texas authorized to burn hazardous waste, couldn't increase their emissions. But, as it turns out, TXI has applied for a permit to burn "tires and tire shreds" in one of its Midlothian kilns, which appears to be a direct violation of that promise. The icing on the cake? The company is billing this tire fire as a way to reduce NOx (nitrogen oxide) emissions.

According to public documents released by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, TXI applied for a standard air permit to burn tires on June 1; classifying tire-burning as a pollution reduction method would allow TXI to bypass the public notice and hearing processes. The April exemption was essentially the same: Since emissions wouldn't (ostensibly) increase with a permit renewal, there was no need for public input. But under TCEQ regulations, parties that had previously objected to the renewal had 45 days to apply for a re-hearing.

Downwinders at Risk, the Dallas-based air-quality activist group, was one of those parties -- but earlier this week, in preparation for a public hearing next Wednesday on the same plant's mercury emissions, Downwinders field organizer Jim Schermbeck discovered that TXI had filed the tire-burning permit request. As far as kiln fuel goes, tires are cheaper than coal, and while they do release fewer nitrogen oxides (NOx), they also come with their own bag of toxic goodies: benzene, carbon monoxide, zinc, chromium and highly toxic dioxins.

Schermbeck tells Unfair Park that the point of filing the tire-burning permit now -- just days away from the 45-day deadline for the TCEQ to decide whether it wants to acquiesce to environmentalists' demands for a re-hearing on the permit renewal -- allows TXI to fly fast and under the radar. "They've been planning to get tires burned for some time," he says. "They waited until the final days of getting that renewal approved, and then they put in for this permit, knowing that they had the renewal sewed up.

"For most people, that would have been a red flag," Schermbeck continues. "The whole reason [the TCEQ] denied us a hearing was because emissions weren't going to increase. Before that period is even up, they apply for another permit that has the real possibility of raising emissions."

TXI did not respond to repeated requests for comment from Unfair Park, and the only TCEQ rep who did was Patricia Martin, an administrative officer in the Air Permits Division who processed TXI's $900 check and sent the proposal on to tech staff.

"It was a pollution control project, so those don't require public notice," Martin tells Unfair Park -- but she says she can't speak to whose job it was to verify what truly constitutes "pollution control."

In Schermbeck's view, TXI should be required to submit scientific test data showing that burning tires is better than burning coal -- and environmental regulation should be taken out of TCEQ's hands.

"To our way of thinking," Schermbeck says, "both the state and TXI are abusing this exemption, [and] TXI can see the savings. We shouldn't rely on Texas to do this kind of work anymore."

Will he tell the EPA as much at next Wednesday's hearing? Schermbeck laughs, then says, "Oh, yeah."

or

http://www.hulu.com/watch/16771/saturday-night-live-digital-short-iran-s...

fRTA from Greg Turcotte on Vimeo.

By AMANDA LEE MYERS
Associated Press Writer

CHANDLER, Ariz. — An 18-year-old high school student caught with his 48-year-old math teacher in her bedroom was stabbed to death by her boyfriend, who was himself a former student of hers, police said Tuesday.

Chandler police said 20-year-old Sixto Balbuena told them he never meant to kill Samuel Valdivia. He allegedly told police "the blade went in like going into butter" and that he just wanted to show Valdivia how much he hurt him by sleeping with Tamara Hofmann.

Balbuena, a Navy sailor on leave from California, was arrested on a charge of second-degree murder after police found him covered in blood and told them about the killing. He remained jailed in lieu of $100,000 bond on Tuesday and did not yet have a lawyer.

Balbuena found his girlfriend naked and Valdivia in his boxer shorts in the woman's bedroom around 2:40 a.m. Friday, according to police reports and court documents.

Balbuena told police that Valdivia apologized to him before Balbuena began kicking, punching and throwing things at him, according to a police probable cause statement.

Police said Balbuena told them he "wanted to teach the victim a lesson," and stabbed him in the lower side with a kitchen knife, according to the court document. Valdivia later died at a hospital.

He also threw Hofmann to the floor jumped on top of her and demanded to know how long she had been cheating on him, according to the document.

Police said Hofmann taught Valdivia math at El Dorado High School in Chandler and was also Balbuena's teacher when he attended Marcos de Niza High School in Tempe.

A call to both schools was not immediately returned Tuesday. Hofmann's phone number is unlisted.

Balbuena is the one who called 911. He told officers he felt remorse for stabbing Valdivia after seeing him lying on the floor struggling to breathe, police said.

Police spokesman Sgt. Joe Favazzo said Hofmann is being investigated for potential misconduct relative to her involvement with Valdivia.

A 2006 Chandler police report obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday shows that police suspected Hofmann of having a sexual relationship with a then-17-year-old Balbuena.

Both Hofmann and Balbuena denied being in a sexual relationship, and police closed the case.

___

Copyright 2009, The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP Online news report may not be published, broadcast or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

From the man who brought you the totally awesome (and totally thick) book Guns, Germs, and Steel that took me over a year of bathroom reading to finish, I present to you the Jared Diamond lecutre on the Evolution of Religions:

OK, probably not as exciting as I made it out to be, but still interesting and makes for some good random convesations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clOx_xGJR4Q