A central London restaurant has insisted that diners sign an indemnity form before eating Christmas puddings, some of which contained silver pieces.Some 350 diners at High Timber signed the waiver before eating the desserts, which contained silver charms. It read: "I absolve High Timber from blame should I come to harm including a chipped tooth, or any injury as a result of swallowing it." Restaurant owner Neleen Strauss said it had "created a bit of a stir".
A central London restaurant has insisted that diners sign an indemnity form before eating Christmas puddings, some of which contained silver pieces.
Some 350 diners at High Timber signed the waiver before eating the desserts, which contained silver charms.
It read: "I absolve High Timber from blame should I come to harm including a chipped tooth, or any injury as a result of swallowing it."
Restaurant owner Neleen Strauss said it had "created a bit of a stir".
BEIJING, Dec. 26 -- Competition between airlines and rail operators will further hot up on Saturday thanks to the launch of China's longest high-speed train link between Wuhan and Guangzhou. The line stretches more than 1,000 km and will slash the travel time from Wuhan, Hubei province, to Guangzhou in Guangdong from 10 hours to just three. Tickets for the service - which also stops at Changsha, capital of Hunan - went on sale at new stations in the three cities last weekend, with prices ranging from 780 yuan ($110) for first class to 490 yuan for second class, said a joint document released by the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Railways.
The line stretches more than 1,000 km and will slash the travel time from Wuhan, Hubei province, to Guangzhou in Guangdong from 10 hours to just three.
Tickets for the service - which also stops at Changsha, capital of Hunan - went on sale at new stations in the three cities last weekend, with prices ranging from 780 yuan ($110) for first class to 490 yuan for second class, said a joint document released by the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Railways.
REYKJAVIK, Dec 23 (IPS) - Iceland already gets over 72 percent of its energy from renewable, hydroelectric and geothermal sources, but Icelanders are ambitious when it comes to energy and scientists are now looking at osmotic and tidal power to meet future energy needs.Prototype power plants tapping these innovative sources are to be located in the West Fjords of Iceland and expected to be functional in the next few years. Osmotic power, harnessed at estuaries, is probably the world's newest form of energy. However, the basic technology behind it is over 30 years old as it is basically desalination in reverse. Thorsteinn Ingi Sigfusson of Innovation Centre Iceland (ICI), who has been involved with the development of osmotic energy and tidal power, says that osmotic technology is relatively safe and simple.
Conservative bloggers are calling for a boycott of the company. Executives say the series, in which Santa is warned the North Pole could melt before Christmas, was intended to inspire children. St. Louis - First, Chicken Little warned children that the sky was falling. And now Build-a-Bear Workshop has warned children that the North Pole could disappear before Christmas. The Missouri-based company has found itself in hot water, defending an animated series on its website featuring polar bears, penguins and Mrs. Claus, as Santa is warned that global warming is "a serious situation." Conservative bloggers reposted the videos online and called for a boycott of the toy company, saying Build-a-Bear should not be presenting a political stance to children. The company relented, took down the videos and posted on its website a letter from Build-a-Bear founder and Chief Executive Maxine Clark. "Our intention with the polar bear story was to inspire children, through the voices of our animal characters, to make a difference in their own individual ways," Clark wrote. "We did not intend to politicize the topic of global climate change or offend anyone in any way." .... Darren Pope, a writer for Examiner.com, was one of the harshest critics of the videos, in which a polar bear named Ella tells Santa: "At the rate it's melting, the North Pole will be gone by Christmas." In a letter to Clark, which he posted online, Pope wrote: "It is one thing to use fear mongering and scare tactics when attempting to win adults over to a particular point of view, it is quite another when using those tactics against very young, impressionable children."
St. Louis - First, Chicken Little warned children that the sky was falling. And now Build-a-Bear Workshop has warned children that the North Pole could disappear before Christmas. The Missouri-based company has found itself in hot water, defending an animated series on its website featuring polar bears, penguins and Mrs. Claus, as Santa is warned that global warming is "a serious situation."
Conservative bloggers reposted the videos online and called for a boycott of the toy company, saying Build-a-Bear should not be presenting a political stance to children.
The company relented, took down the videos and posted on its website a letter from Build-a-Bear founder and Chief Executive Maxine Clark. "Our intention with the polar bear story was to inspire children, through the voices of our animal characters, to make a difference in their own individual ways," Clark wrote. "We did not intend to politicize the topic of global climate change or offend anyone in any way."
....
Darren Pope, a writer for Examiner.com, was one of the harshest critics of the videos, in which a polar bear named Ella tells Santa: "At the rate it's melting, the North Pole will be gone by Christmas." In a letter to Clark, which he posted online, Pope wrote: "It is one thing to use fear mongering and scare tactics when attempting to win adults over to a particular point of view, it is quite another when using those tactics against very young, impressionable children."
We Must Be Told. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
Is Build-A-Bear a deviously named branch of the Bilderberg Group?
Western users of heavy rare earths say that they have no way of figuring out what proportion of the minerals they buy from China comes from responsibly operated mines. Licensed and illegal mines alike sell to itinerant traders. They buy the valuable material with sacks of cash, then sell it to processing centers in and around Guangzhou that separate the rare earths from each other.Companies that buy these rare earths, including a few in Japan and the West, turn them into refined metal powders."I don't know if part of that feed, internal in China, came from an illegal mine and went in a legal separator," said David Kennedy, the president of Great Western Technologies in Troy, Mich., which imports Chinese rare earths and turns them into powders that are sold worldwide.
Western users of heavy rare earths say that they have no way of figuring out what proportion of the minerals they buy from China comes from responsibly operated mines. Licensed and illegal mines alike sell to itinerant traders. They buy the valuable material with sacks of cash, then sell it to processing centers in and around Guangzhou that separate the rare earths from each other.
Companies that buy these rare earths, including a few in Japan and the West, turn them into refined metal powders.
"I don't know if part of that feed, internal in China, came from an illegal mine and went in a legal separator," said David Kennedy, the president of Great Western Technologies in Troy, Mich., which imports Chinese rare earths and turns them into powders that are sold worldwide.
Lindsey Hilsum of Independent Television News examines how mining rare earth minerals -- considered to be an obscure yet profitable industry, is causing a major environmental dilemma in China.
Chinese pay toxic price for a green world - Times Online (2009.12.6)
Seepage from the lake has poisoned the surrounding farmland. "The crops stopped growing after being watered in these fields," said Wang Cun Gang, a farmer. The local council paid villagers compensation for loss of income. "They tested our water and concluded that neither people nor animals should drink it, nor is it usable for irrigation." This is the price Chinese peasants are paying for the low carbon future. Rare earths, a class of metallic elements that are highly reactive, are essential for the next generation of "green" technologies. The battery in a Toyota Prius car contains more than 22lb of lanthanum. Low-energy lightbulbs need terbium. The permanent magnets used in a 3 megawatt wind turbine use 2 tons of neodymium and other rare earths. <...> "If the purpose of putting hybrid vehicles on the road is to lower our dependence on foreign oil, and all we're doing is buying cars that need Chinese rare earth materials, aren't we trading one dependence for another?" asked Mark Smith, chief executive of Molycorp Minerals, a US mining firm. <...> Preparing a rare earth mine to western environmental standards is costly. According to Dudley Kingsnorth, an Australian expert, China can mine the elements at a third of the cost, partly because of lax standards. "I think it will be at least 10 years before China will match our standards," he said. ...
Seepage from the lake has poisoned the surrounding farmland. "The crops stopped growing after being watered in these fields," said Wang Cun Gang, a farmer. The local council paid villagers compensation for loss of income. "They tested our water and concluded that neither people nor animals should drink it, nor is it usable for irrigation."
This is the price Chinese peasants are paying for the low carbon future. Rare earths, a class of metallic elements that are highly reactive, are essential for the next generation of "green" technologies. The battery in a Toyota Prius car contains more than 22lb of lanthanum. Low-energy lightbulbs need terbium. The permanent magnets used in a 3 megawatt wind turbine use 2 tons of neodymium and other rare earths.
<...>
"If the purpose of putting hybrid vehicles on the road is to lower our dependence on foreign oil, and all we're doing is buying cars that need Chinese rare earth materials, aren't we trading one dependence for another?" asked Mark Smith, chief executive of Molycorp Minerals, a US mining firm.
Preparing a rare earth mine to western environmental standards is costly. According to Dudley Kingsnorth, an Australian expert, China can mine the elements at a third of the cost, partly because of lax standards. "I think it will be at least 10 years before China will match our standards," he said. ...
'Rare earth' shortage threatens green revolution - Channel 4 News (2009.12.9)
Champions of a low carbon future have yet to wake up to the environmental price Chinese workers and villagers are paying. At Copenhagen politicians talk of cutting carbon emissions, but they cannot meet any targets without 'rare earth' - that means a sustainable supply and not all from China.
The permanent magnets used in a 3 megawatt wind turbine use 2 tons of neodymium and other rare earths.
Can't speak to the accuracy of this figure, but i can say that more than 90% of all wind turbines, including those of 3MW scale, use no permanent magnets at all. The industry could survive without neodymium if it had to, though admittedly there is a reason why the generator part of the power train is moving toward PM. "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
