On the serious side, we are in an era where labor injustice provokes a hunger strike.  wow.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

AUSTIN, Tex. - The widow of the Internal Revenue Service employee killed when a Texas man crashed his plane into the agency's office is suing the pilot's widow [!].

The lawsuit against Sheryl Stack seeks to determine if her husband, Joseph Stack, left behind insurance policies or other assets [!], attorney Daniel Ross says.

Ross represents Valerie Hunter, whose husband, Vernon Hunter, 68, was killed last week when, authorities say, Joseph Stack deliberately crashed his single-engine plane into the IRS office.

The pilot left behind a lengthy anti-government Internet posting blaming the IRS [!] for his problems.

The lawsuit, filed Monday, says Sheryl Stack should have warned others about her husband.

A Washington, D.C.-based alternative energy company has signed a letter of intent to use an idled plant in New Castle (Indiana, US-MfM) to produce wind turbines as part of a national energy program....

Nationally, D'Arcinoff has said it could employ more than 100,000 people to manufacture, operate and service its turbines. The company also is considering locating operations in Delaware, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, New York and Ohio....

D'Arcinoff's plan counts on producing 30,000 wind turbines a year, 10 times the number produced by Denmark-based Vestas the world's largest maker of wind turbines.

I don't have enough info to know if my leg is being pulled, but the company is planning the production of 1.5 MW "shrouded" turbine units that look like this:

Also, they are apparently working with Statoil and GE on the mass production of hydrogen electrolysis units.  Which if they pull off, would be a huge boon for the penetration of wind power into electricity markets.

If the 30,000 turbines figure is accurate, and the model is this 1.5 MW shrouded unit, that's  45000 MW of capacity produced annually.  At a 30% generation factor (that is generation is 30% of capacity) that's 118, 260 GWH annually.  Which would is 3.82% of current US annual electric generation, added annually.

I don't believe for a moment that's possible in less than a decade, but it's one hell of a target.

Have any of our windpower folks ever heard of this D'Arcinoff group, or outfits called Ecodawn, Inc. or
Transportable Power, Inc?

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

UCubed is the brain-child of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), whose leaders feel that the millions of unemployed workers need a union of their own to join in the struggle for massive jobs programs.

Read more...

Finland is the third happiest nation in Europe, according to a new study published by the Social Insurance Institute of Finland (Kela). When it comes to feelings of joy and contentment, Finland beat out its Nordic neighbours Sweden and Norway.

Women tend to be happier than men, according to the study led by Olli Kangas, who heads the research department at Kela. Over 31 percent of Finnish men said they are extremely happy. For Finnish women, the number was 45 percent. A total of 1.4 percent of men and women said they are extremely unhappy.

On a scale of 0 to 10, Finns ranked their happiness at 8.0. Only Denmark (8.3) and Switzerland (8.1) had higher marks than Finland. Sweden and Norway were close behind with a score of 7.9. The Dutch ranked their happiness at 7.7.

Finns are total rankers...

You can't be me, I'm taken

Where did all the people go from the collapsed financial institutions?

Via Linked In, we get the semblance of an answer:

One hypothesis is that many of the employees left the financial industry. According to the LinkedIn data set, that just isn't true. There are a handful of people that did transition to other industries and start new careers, but most stayed in the financial space. To be specific, other than two acquiring companies (Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch and Nomura acquired Lehman Brothers' franchise in the Asia Pacific region), Barclays was by far the biggest beneficiary, scooping up 10% of the laid off talent, followed by Credit Suisse at 1.5% and Citigroup at 1.1 %.

Here's a chart:

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

Tensions have been running high since the Jan. 12 earthquake killed what Presidnt René Préval fears may have been an estimated 300,000 people and left more than 1 million homeless. Religious tension has also increased: Baptists, Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientologists, Mormons and other missionaries have flocked to Haiti in droves since the earthquake to feed the homeless, treat the injured and jockey for souls. Some Vodou practitioners have said they've converted to Christianity for fear they will lose out on aid or a belief that the earthquake was a warning from God.

Absolutely disgusting!

"Beware of the man who does not talk, and the dog that does not bark." Cheyenne

ah, well. even I've got things I need to do.

keep to the Fen Causeway

Ha !! Once I showed him streetview with a look over the fence he just said "can't you get any closer ?" and when I said no he siad "Oh, I was expecting to go past all the aircraft in rows" and walked away.

Technology ?!! I spit on your technology :-))

keep to the Fen Causeway

Pasadena Star-News: No Cussing movement up for state recognition

California is one step closer to cleaning up its language while at the same time achieving a legislative miracle.

This morning, legislators will vote on a bill to declare next week California Cuss Free Week. The bill is the idea of South Pasadena High School student McKay Hutch, who started a No Cussing Club at his junior high in 2007.

"I want to bring awareness to people about how we speak to each other," he said. "Your words become your actions, your actions become your behavior, your behavior becomes your character and your character becomes your destiny."

In other words, those dirty words lead to dirty deeds and a bleak future, Hutch said.

But beyond washing out California's collective mouth with soap for one week, Hutch has united political rivals for a common cause.

Just another example that no fucking good can come from bi-partisanship.

Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes

In short Mills will not have to do four-and-a-half years in jail but must pay a fine of € 250,000 to Italian Council Presidency for having damaged the image of Italy. The current Council President is Silvio Berlusconi, the person who corrupted Mills. One wonders what untold sum Berlusconi would owe Italians for the permanent damage he has brought on Italy by his mere presence in the role of Council President.

Berlusconi will now have to undergo a trial as the corruptor. He had passed a personal law that granted him temporary immunity from prosecution while in office. The law was recently struck down as anti-constitutional, forcing Berlusconi to write a new bill, called "legitimate impediment," to block the trial. However, his legislative engineering also suspended the statute of limitations which is now set in 2012. At this pace he need only churn out self-serving laws until the bribery case will be extinguished due to the death of the defendant.

 Mr. Mills who has since mastered the local art of victimism will assert that the dozens of judges that handled his case are politically motivated.

But he needn't worry. Just as in the Andreotti case there will be headlines tomorrow declaring that Mills was found innocent- fortunately not in the English press.

From minute 13 through 17:30

Andrew Rawnsley has just released a book that is wonderfully rude about Gordon Brown. On Newsnight John Prescott decided to defend Brown from these charges of shouting in office and having anger issues by getting angry and shouting. But then Mr Rawnsley came back at him demonstrating what an utter hypocrite he was. the look on Prescott's face as the camera pans away is priceless

keep to the Fen Causeway

keep to the Fen Causeway

Discussion here in Scotland has turned to the linguistics of flatulence.

I am reliably informed by solveig that in inflating order of decibels/virulence the Norwegian terminology is:

Fiss...soft and sibilent

Fjert...more audible

Promp...the works

In English I have heard

Fluff

Fart

Trump

for similar levels on the  Richter scale of Flatulence.

Any other contributions?

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson