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n2doc's JournalSriracha smell complaints began with Irwindale councilman's son
By Frank Shyong and Hector Becerra
Los Angeles Times
October 31, 2013, 2:55 p.m.
In a declaration filed Thursday morning, David Tran, chief executive and founder of Huy Fong Foods, said the first complaints about the Sriracha hot sauce factory in late 2012 came from an Irwindale city councilman's son.
The declaration does not name the councilman's son, but sources told The Times it refers to the son of councilman Hector Manuel Ortiz. The Irwindale City Council and city manager have not responded to requests for comment made Thursday morning.
According to the declaration, Huy Fong Foods responded to the son's first complaint last year by installing filters. The matter seemed to be resolved, until September, when he complained again, a month after chili grinding had begun, according to the declaration.
Huy Fong officials have responded by installing additional filters and inviting engineers from the South Coast Air Quality Management District to inspect the plant. City officials, according to Tran, suggested using an air-filtration system that would cost $600,000 to install, but Tran said he wanted to explore other options. The company has since contacted three separate air quality consultants to determine the best smell reduction methods, according to the declaration.
more
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-sriracha-complains-councilman-son-20131031,0,1026708.story#axzz2jLZhiDmG
Today's APOD: Night on a Spooky Planet
Night on a Spooky Planet
Image Credit & Copyright: Stéphane Vetter (Nuits sacrées)
Explanation: What spooky planet is this? Planet Earth of course, on the dark and stormy night of September 12 at Hverir, a geothermally active area along the volcanic landscape in northeastern Iceland. Geomagnetic storms produced the auroral display in the starry night sky while ghostly towers of steam and gas venting from fumaroles danced against the eerie greenish light. Tonight, there is still a chance for geomagnetic storms triggered by recent solar activity, so high-latitude skygazers should beware. And ghostly shapes may dance in your neighborhood, too. Have a safe and Happy Halloween!
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap131031.html
Why Hot Water Freezes Faster Than Cold—Physicists Solve the Mpemba Effect
Water may be one of the most abundant compounds on Earth, but it is also one of more mysterious. For example, like most liquids it becomes denser as it cools. But unlike them, it reaches a state of maximum density at 4°C and then becomes less dense before it freezes.
In solid form, it is less dense still, which is why standard ice floats on water. That’s one reason why life on Earth has flourished— if ice were denser than water, lakes and oceans would freeze from the bottom up, almost certainly preventing the kind of chemistry that makes life possible.
Then there is the strange Mpemba effect, named after a Tanzanian student who discovered that a hot ice cream mix freezes faster than a cold mix in cookery classes in the early 1960s. (In fact, the effect has been noted by many scientists throughout history including Aristotle, Francis Bacon and René Descartes.)
The Mpemba effect is the observation that warm water freezes more quickly than cold water. The effect has been measured on many occasions with many explanations put forward. One idea is that warm containers make better thermal contact with a refrigerator and so conduct heat more efficiently. Hence the faster freezing. Another is that warm water evaporates rapidly and since this is an endothermic process, it cools the water making it freeze more quickly.
more
https://medium.com/editors-picks/d8a2f611e853
Physics: What We Do and Don’t Know
Steven Weinberg
In the past fifty years two large branches of physical science have each made a historic transition. I recall both cosmology and elementary particle physics in the early 1960s as cacophonies of competing conjectures. By now in each case we have a widely accepted theory, known as a “standard model.”
Cosmology and elementary particle physics span a range from the largest to the smallest distances about which we have any reliable knowledge. The cosmologist looks out to a cosmic horizon, the farthest distance light could have traveled since the universe became transparent to light over ten billion years ago, while the elementary particle physicist explores distances much smaller than an atomic nucleus. Yet our standard models really work—they allow us to make numerical predictions of high precision, which turn out to agree with observation.
Up to a point the stories of cosmology and particle physics can be told separately. In the end, though, they will come together.
much much more
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/nov/07/physics-what-we-do-and-dont-know/
Utah man shot, killed by Texas police while running away, witnesses say
SALINA — A man who was born and raised in Salina was shot and killed by police Monday in Duncanville, Texas, just outside of Dallas.
Several witnesses, including the man's sister, said Clinton Peterson, 28, was unarmed and running away from police when he was shot.
"I'm not aware of how many shots were fired or who shot," said Doug Sisk, a Duncanville police officer. "I know shots were fired is all I know."
Police said they were responding to a call of a major disturbance. Clinton's sister, Melissa Peterson, said he was at her house Monday morning and refused to leave.
"My friend had called the cops because she just wanted him to go home and calm down," Melissa said.
She said her brother was walking home when two officers arrived. When confronted at gunpoint, she said Clinton put his hands in his pockets and began backing away from officers. She said Clinton took off running. Melissa saw one officer tase Clinton while the other fired his gun.
more
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=27452796&nid=148&title=utah-man-shot-killed-by-texas-police-while-running-away-witnesses-say&fm=home_page&s_cid=featured-1
Alec Baldwin: Americans have been lied to
Obviously, we’ve been here before. The United States has been here before. The friction between democracy (or democracy as we like to think of it) and capitalism has often created agonising tensions and dramatic upheavals for America. Those spasms left us at least as demoralised as many Americans feel in the wake of the Edward Snowden-NSA revelations. The reality that the government is spying on Americans on a wholesale level, seemingly indiscriminately, doesn’t really come as a surprise to many, given the assumed imperatives of the post- 9/11 security state. People seem more stricken by the fact that Barack Obama, who once vowed to close Guantanamo, has adopted CIA-NSA policies regarding domestic spying, as well as by government attempts to silence, even hunt down, the press.
Americans, in terms of their enthusiasm for defending their beloved democratic principles in the face of an ever more muscular assault on those principles by the state in the name of national security, are exhausted. If you are a “boomer”, like me, and have lived through the past five decades with any degree of political efficacy, you can draw a line from JFK’s assassination to the subsequent escalation of the Vietnam war, on to 1968 with the murders of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the Chicago Democratic Convention and Nixon’s resurrection; from there, to Kent State, the Pentagon Papers, Nixon’s re-election, Watergate, Nixon’s resignation, Ford’s pardon, Carter’s one term and out, the curious Iran hostage situation, Reagan (who brings back a degree of the charm and affability that died in Dallas), Iran Contra, Oliver North, Bush the First (as in first CIA director to become president), Iraq the First, Clinton kills welfare, Gingrich shuts down the Congress, Clinton’s impeachment, the 2000 election, Bush v Gore, Bush the Second, 9/11, Iraq the Second, “Mission Accomplished”, the Swift Boaters, Afghanistan, Gitmo, Assange, Manning, Snowden.
I have left out a good deal. There is, of course, a lot that’s positive running through the American narrative during this time, but I think more bad than good. You look at all of this laid end to end and you’d think the US might have had a nervous breakdown. I believe it actually did.
Americans are pretty basic. Generally speaking, they are a “suit up and show up” type of crowd. In spite of images of rampant obesity running throughout the country, gun laws that border on madness and our debt ceiling made of Swiss cheese, more Americans wake up every day to participate in an experience defined by work, sacrifice and moderate self-denial. They are workaholics who exercise, eat fairly well, drink in moderation and refrain from drugs and extramarital affairs while, perhaps, fantasising about either or both. They are devoted to family, friends, churches and social organisations. They are generous with their money as well as time. When disaster strikes, America is a good place to be.
But one thing that Americans fail at, miserably, is taking their government to task when that government has lied to them, defrauded them, covered up its crimes and otherwise blocked them from knowing essential truths. In political terms, Americans have a strong devotion to afflicting the afflicted and comforting the comfortable. They have a hard time contemplating any meaningful overhaul of the rules of their political system, preferring to say “Please, sir, may I have another” in the face of abuses of power. Americans, despite all of their claims to an “exceptionalism” among the nations of the world, have been lied to for so long about so many relevant topics, they have lost sight of what the truth is.
more
http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/10/americans-have-been-lied
Wisconsin approves of Tammy Baldwin — she gets what Ron Johnson misses
There is a reason why, in the new Marquette University Law School poll, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin has a 47 percent approval rating while U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson's approval rating is 28 percent.
While Johnson practices the politics of obstruction and gimmickry, Baldwin is a serious senator.
That’s evident in their dramatically different responses to the opening of deliberations by the House-Senate Conference Committee on budget issues. Johnson is still pushing for the sort of austerity schemes that have already failed in Europe and that reverse progress toward economic recovery in the United States. Even when the studies on which the Oshkosh Republican bases his backward thinking are discredited, Johnson refuses to recognize reality.
Contrast that with Baldwin, who is offering smart, detailed proposals that reject the failed austerity agenda in favor of job creation and growth.
Read more: http://host.madison.com/news/opinion/editorial/wisconsin-approves-of-tammy-baldwin-she-gets-what-ron-johnson/article_f6202fc6-a48b-579f-acd4-431bc165b14d.html
Russell, choosing to vote is the most British kind of revolution there is
Robert Webb tells Russell Brand: your New Statesman essay has made me rejoin the Labour party.
Dear Russell,
Hi. We’ve met about twice, so I should probably reintroduce myself: I’m the other one from Peep Show. I read your thing on revolution in these pages with great interest and some concern. My first reaction was to rejoin the Labour Party. The Jiffy bag containing the plastic membership card and the Tristram Hunt action figure is, I am assured, in the post. I just wanted to tell you why I did that because I thought you might want to hear from someone who a) really likes your work, b) takes you seriously as a thoughtful person and c) thinks you’re wilfully talking through your arse about something very important.
It’s about influence and engagement. You have a theoretical 7.1 million (mostly young) followers on Twitter. They will have their own opinions about everything and I have no intention of patronising them. But what I will say is that when I was 15, if Stephen Fry had advised me to trim my eyebrows with a Flymo, I would have given it serious consideration. I don’t think it’s your job to tell young people that they should engage with the political process. But I do think that when you end a piece about politics with the injunction “I will never vote and I don’t think you should either”, then you’re actively telling a lot of people that engagement with our democracy is a bad idea. That just gives politicians the green light to neglect the concerns of young people because they’ve been relieved of the responsibility of courting their vote.
Why do pensioners (many of whom are not poor old grannies huddled round a kerosene lamp for warmth but bloated ex-hippie baby boomers who did very well out of the Thatcher/Lawson years) get so much attention from politicians? Because they vote.
more
http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/10/russell-choosing-vote-most-british-kind-revolution-there
‘I’m showing my son mercy’
By Irin Carmon
On their last night in Dallas, the ramen noodles and microwave popcorn were finished. The money for the motel had run out too. So on a hot August night Jessica and Erick Davis and their three young kids slept in the Mazda rented for the trip.
It had only been a few hours since Jessica’s abortion. Because the procedure needed to be performed later in her pregnancy, it stretched over three days.
“I cried until I could fall asleep,” she said.
Earlier that month, at home in Oklahoma City, the Davises were told that the boy she was carrying had a severe brain malformation known as holoprosencephaly. It is rare, though possible, for such a fetus to survive to birth, but doctors told them that he would not reach his first birthday. “He would never walk, lift his head,” Jessica, 23, recalled in an interview.
“I could let my son go on and suffer,” she said. Or she could accept a word she didn’t like – abortion - “and do the best thing for my baby.”
The Davises’ ordeal was always going to be painful. But the grim path that led them to a night in the car was determined, nearly every step of the way, by a state that has scrambled to be the most “pro-life” in the nation. There are no exceptions for families like the Davises.
more
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/abortion-restrictions-in-oklahoma
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