Day: May 7, 2011

Romans quake in their Guccis

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If tourists find Rome unusually quiet next Wednesday, the reason will probably be that thousands of locals have left town in fear of a devastating earthquake allegedly forecast for that day by a long-dead seismologist.

For months Italian internet sites, blogs and social networks have been debating the work of Raffaele Bendandi, who claimed to have forecast numerous earthquakes and, according to internet rumors, predicted a “big one” in Rome on May 11…

“I’m going to tell the boss I’ve got a medical appointment and take the day off,” barman Fabio Mengarelli told Reuters. “If I have to die I want to die with my wife and kids, and masses of people will do the same as me.”

Chef Tania Cotorobai also said she would be taking a day off in the country. “I don’t know if I really believe it but if you look at the internet you see everything and the opposite of everything, and it end up making you nervous,” she said…

Bendandi, who died in 1979 aged 86, believed earthquakes were the result of the combined movements of the planets, the moon and the sun and were perfectly predictable.

In 1923 he forecast a quake would hit the central Adriatic region of the Marches on January 2 the following year. He was wrong by two days but Italy’s main newspaper Corriere della Sera still ran a front page article on “The man who forecasts earthquakes.”

Bendandi’s fame grew and in 1927 he was awarded a knighthood by Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini…

However the current panic appears to be due more to fear-mongering in the age of internet than to Bendandi himself.

Fear and ignorance seem to be motivators as central to social and political phenomena today as they were in the Dark Ages.

I wonder if there’s some way the Holy Roman Catholic Church will make a buck off of this?

Whisky-powered bioenergy plant will provide public electricity

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It is the spirit that powers the Scottish economy, and now whisky is to be used to create electricity for homes in a new bioenergy venture involving some of Scotland’s best-known distilleries.

Contracts have recently been awarded for the construction of a biomass combined heat and power plant at Rothes in Speyside that by 2013 will use the by-products of the whisky-making process for energy production.

Vast amounts of “draff”, the spent grains used in the distilling process, and pot ale, a residue from the copper stills, are produced by the whisky industry each year and are usually transported off-site. The Rothes project, a joint venture between Helius Energy and the Combination of Rothes Distillers (CoRD) will burn the draff with woodchips to generate enough electricity to supply 9,000 homes. It will be supplied by Aalborg Energie Technick, a danish engineering company. The pot ale will be made into a concentrated organic fertiliser and an animal feed for use by local farmers…

The £50m Rothes project is the latest bioenergy venture from the Scotch whisky industry, but it is believed to be the first to provide electricity for public use. A bioenergy plant at Scotland’s largest distillery in Fife is close to completion. The project by Diageo will provide 98% of the thermal steam and 80% of the electrical power used at the Cameronbridge distillery. And last year, scientists at Napier University announced they had developed a method of producing biofuel from the by-products of the whisky distilling process which could power cars and even aircraft. The new fuel, they said, could be available at petrol pumps within a few years.

Of Scotland’s 100 whisky distilleries, 50 are based in Speyside, and Frank Burns, general manager of CoRD, said it was an ideal location for the new bioenergy plant which will be built on an existing industrial site.

“It is very well supported in the local community. Up here in Rothes and in Speyside in general we have a lot of strong links,” he said. “We had zero objections at the planning stage and we have done a lot of work within the community on the progress of the project.”

Waste products from around 16 of the area’s 50 distilleries will be used at the site, including well-known brands such as Glenlivet, Chivas Regal, Macallan, and Famous Grouse. None will come from further than 25 miles away.

There are only a few environmental organizations apparently seeking for some reason to oppose this Green recycling project are those whose religion is tied to the Old Testament version of “only local is any good”. This may be a dicho that helps carry council elections – though I doubt that – and ignores the more requirement of sustainable production in the first place.

Poisonally, I welcome the growth of projects like this. I’ve blogged about them in the past. Like the folks at the Rocky Mountain Institute, I try to support Green projects which also save people money – not limiting progress to expensive ideology.

Thanks, Ursarodinia

University trustees reverse decision on NOT granting honorary degree to playwright critical of Israel – UPDATED

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Under mounting pressure, the City University of New York board of trustees moved…to reverse its decision…to withhold an honorary degree from the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner because of one trustee’s concerns about Mr. Kushner’s views regarding Israel.

Benno C. Schmidt Jr., chairman of the CUNY board since 2003, said in a statement that he believed the board had “made a mistake of principle, and not merely of policy,” in failing to approve the degree from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at its meeting on Monday. Mr. Schmidt scheduled a meeting for this coming Monday of the board’s seven-member executive committee, which has the power to reconsider any board decision that is detrimental to the university.

“Freedom of thought and expression is the bedrock of any university worthy of the name,” Mr. Schmidt, a former president of Yale, said in a statement. “But it is not right for the board to consider politics in connection with the award of honorary degrees except in extreme cases not presented by the facts here.”

CUNY’s reconsideration comes amid a spiraling uproar in the literary and arts community — where Mr. Kushner, the author of “Angels in America,” has many friends and supporters — as well as among the university’s professors and among civil libertarians and political activists. In letters posted on Facebook on Friday, the writers Barbara Ehrenreich and Michael Cunningham promised to return their own honorary degrees from CUNY in protest — though Ms. Ehrenreich added the cutting caveat, “if I can find it.”

Mr. Kushner…was removed from a list of 40 honorary degree candidates from all of CUNY’s campuses after one trustee, Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld, made an impassioned speech denouncing Mr. Kushner’s past statements about Israel and Palestinians, including a reference to “ethnic cleansing” during the formation of the state in 1948. Mr. Kushner, who was not present, has disputed Mr. Wiesenfeld’s characterization of his views, and said he is a strong supporter of Israel’s right to exist…

CUNY is the nation’s largest urban university, with 262,000 degree-seeking students at 23 schools and programs.

One of the trustees referred to the incident as “a rare pimple on the face of CUNY.”

I’d probably add that Mr. Wiesenfeld’s dedication to Israel’s politics and policies of Lebensraum are much more of a conflict of interest than anything from the rest of the trustees. More of a pimple on the ass of CUNY.

UPDATE: Kushner’s honorary degree ceremony is back on the schedule.

Jilted bridegroom sues runaway bride for leaving him at altar

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An Italian bridegroom jilted at the altar by his future wife is suing her for €500,000 in compensation for the “emotional distress” of being dumped in the first case of its kind.

The 32-year-old groom, who has been named only as Riccardo R in court papers due to privacy laws – was dumped in a message delivered by the 30-year-old bride’s brother at the altar in front of stunned family and friends.

He had spent thousands of euros on the church wedding, which was due to take place in Rome two weeks ago, including a lavish reception at a top hotel and an exotic Pacific honeymoon.

His legal team said that Riccardo had needed hospital treatment for “hyperventilation and stress” after being told by the bride’s brother that she had left him as she was “in love with another man” with whom she had been having an affair for several months. Court prosecution documents state that there was “no justifiable motive” for the woman, known as Claudia, to dump her intended husband at the altar and that therefore she should be “liable for compensation for the emotional damage she had caused”…

The case has been filed in the Rome civil court and a medical certificate showing Riccardo’s admission to hospital was also submitted as evidence. The compensation claim has been broken down into €229,000 for costs associated with the wedding, €150,000 for moral damages and €120,000 for psychological damages as well as €1,000 court costs.

Har! I understand it – and it can be a 2-way street, of course. Should be a hell of an interesting trial – especially in a macho nation like Italy.

U.S. government fleet jumps to 23.4 mpg average

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Ford Fusion Hybrid

The General Services Administration (GSA), which oversees two-thirds of the 600,000-plus vehicles in the U.S. government’s fleet, is looking to save millions of dollars per year at the pump by bolstering its use of fuel-efficient vehicles. The 35,000 vehicles ordered by the GSA so far in 2011 consume 21 percent less fuel than the vehicles they replaced, according to the agency. The average miles-per-gallon rating of the U.S. government’s fleet of vehicles now stands at 23.4, up from 19.1 in 2010.

The Detroit Three are expected to reap most of the benefits of the government’s purchases. GSA administrator, Martha Johnson, says that, “We will be depending on innovative technologies and products coming out of Detroit to help us achieve these goals, and I am confident that American automakers will continue to rise to the challenge…”

This year, approximately 22,000 of the 35,000 vehicles ordered by GSA were advanced technology vehicles (i.e., electric vehicles, hybrids, flex-fuel capable automobiles and plug-in hybrids). Over the past two years, the government has more than doubled the number of hybrids in its 600,000-plus vehicle fleet.

Of course, we could elect a Republican government and move the fleet back to Hummers and Buicks.

Kids get to play with rifle: 5-year-old kills 4-year-old

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The Victoria County [Texas] Sheriff’s Office continues to investigate the shooting death of a 4-year-old Victoria boy late Wednesday night.

The boy, whose name has not been released, was fatally shot in the abdomen by a 5-year-old sibling who was playing with a bolt action rifle in the back room of their home, Chief Deputy Terry Simons of the Victoria County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday.

The call came in at 10 p.m. from a home on Farm-to-Market Road 444, just south of Telferner, Simons said.

The parents were at the home at the time of the shooting, but the sheriff’s office is investigating to determine why the boy and his sibling were left unsupervised, Simons said…

The boy’s parents drove him to the Telferner Grocery and Market to meet with paramedics, who then rushed the boy to Citizens Medical Center.

The boy was pronounced dead at 10:31 p.m., Simons said.

Too sad. I think I’ll leave thoughts and comments up to you.