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Thursday, October 21, 2010

The Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is facing several lawsuits, including one filed by residents of San Bruno, California, after a gas line exploded in their neighborhood on September 10, completely destroying over 50 structures, 37 of them homes. In their lawsuit, residents claim that PG&E knew the pipeline was “defective” and was a “ticking time bomb”. They further allege that the company was aware that the pipeline could fail, but did not act.

The lawsuit was filed by at least five families who resided in the Glenview neighborhood of San Bruno. The Danko firm who is representing the residents say they expect to file at least a dozen more lawsuits against the company alleging they were liable and responsible for the explosion and the damages that occurred as a result of it. “This wasn’t an accident. This was a foreseeable consequence of ignoring safety measures,” one attorney representing the families said. It has also been reported that several other wrongful death lawsuits have been filed against PG&E. Three people were killed in the explosion.

The explosion and subsequent fire was originally thought to have been a downed commercial aircraft. Live scanner communications at the time of the explosion had stated that fire departments from six different companies reported to the scene. Residents say that firefighters were not able to bring the blaze under control because the pipeline was active for at least 5 hours after the explosion.

Residents filing the lawsuits are seeking damages and removal of the pipeline from the neighborhood. Jim Ruane, the mayor of San Bruno, backs residents in their request to PG&E to remove the pipeline from Glenview. “We want our neighborhood rebuilt, and we want our people back,” he said. A PG&E spokesperson denied having officially received the lawsuits, but said: “We remain committed to our customers in San Bruno and will continue to be there to help rebuild the neighborhood.”

Saturday, March 10, 2012

The Kenyan government has dismissed 25,000 striking health workers, mostly nurses, citing failure to heed government orders to recommence work and concern for the welfare of hospital patients. Speaking on behalf of the government, Alfred Mutua stated the workers were dismissed “illegally striking” and “[defying] the directive … to report back to work”, which he called “unethical”. The government asks that “[a]ll qualified health professionals, who are unemployed and/or retired have been advised to report to their nearest health facility for interviews and deployment”, Mutua stated.

The workers, who had been on strike for four days, were wishing to have improvements made to their wages, working conditions, and allowances. The strikes have caused a significant number of Kenyan hospitals to cease operations. According to Kenya Health Professionals Society spokesperson Alex Orina, the average monthly wage plus allowances for health workers in Kenya is KSh25,000 (£193, US$302 or €230) approximately. With an increasing number of reports of patients neglected in hospitals emerging, two trade unions met with the Kenyan government yesterday and negotitated a return to work, although a significant proportion of demonstrators defied the agreement, The Guardian reported.

Orina told Reuters the dismissals were “cat-and-mouse games, you cannot sack an entire workforce. It is a ploy to get us to rush back to work, but our strike continues until our demands are met”. Frederick Omiah, a member of the same society, believed the government’s actions would “make an already delicate and volatile situation worse”, expressing concern that demonstrations may continue in the capital Nairobi, amongst other locations. Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union chairperson Dr. Victor Ng’ani described government actions as “reckless”.

Mutua said the health workers were “no longer employees of the government” and had been eliminated from the payroll. While Ng’ani told the BBC of difficulties with finding other workers as skilled and experienced, Mutua reportedly stated that this would not be an issue. “We have over 100,000 to 200,000 health professionals looking for work today,” Mutua commented. “There will be a lag of a day or two … but it is better than letting people die on the floor, at the gate, or suffer in pain”.

Monday, June 16, 2008

The Canadian Environmental Law Assocation and the Canadian organization Environmental Defence jointly conducted a study that was released to the public on Thursday, saying that chemicals released by new vinyl curtains may pose a significant health risk.

The study noted that many shower curtains contain more than 100 volatile organic compounds (VOCs), phthalates and organotins, some of which may be released into the air when first taken from a package. These chemicals, responsible for the characteristic smell of new vinyl, may cause damage to kidneys, the liver and the central nervous systems, respiratory problems, nausea, headaches and loss off coordination, according to the report.

These vinyl curtains are also said to contain traces of metals like lead, cadmium and mercury.

Jennifer Foulds of Environmental Defence advises consumers to seek alternatives to new vinyl products such as shower curtains and table cloths. Older products are thought to be safe, as they have already released most of the allegedly dangerous chemicals.

Critics of the study have called it “fear-mongering”, and some health professionals agree that the risk is being overblown. Warren Foster, a professor in the obstetrics and gynecology department at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario points out that, “the difference between hazard and risk is great, and without knowing the actual human exposure, it’s premature to make any judgement.”

Foster further commented that the study was not performed in a rigorous manner by not having controls or random sampling.

Five brands of shower curtain were examined in the study; they were purchased from American stores including Bed Bath & Beyond, Kmart, Sears, Target and Wal-Mart. Curtains of the same brand are also available in major Canadian stores.

Marion Axmith, director general of the Vinyl Council of Canada calls the report a “blatant attempt to manipulate consumers and retailers into thinking shower curtains pose a danger, and they don’t.” She noted that, “as far as we know, nobody’s ever been harmed by a shower curtain.”

Vinyl has long been a point of dispute between environmentalists and those in the chemical industry. A chemical used to make vinyl is known to be a risk for liver and other cancers for chemical plant workers, and the phthalates in vinyl products have been linked to interference with normal male hormone production.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Wolfram Research Inc., makers of Mathematica and A New Kind of Science, have released a limited alpha of their new web service Wolfram Alpha. Wolfram Alpha is described by CEO Stephen Wolfram as a “computational knowledge engine.” Unlike Google, Yahoo! and other traditional web search engines that rely on statistical methods for retrieving online documents, Wolfram Alpha answers factual questions in the way that Wikipedia does, except it relies on analytical methods instead of human-generated documents.

Although the product is still in a limited release some details about its operation and design have been revealed by Wolfram on his blog, and by Nova Spivack who recently interviewed Wolfram about Wolfram Alpha. The product is available on the Web as a single search box reminiscent of Google’s main search page. The search queries can be entered in natural language and the natural language system will parse the query and use models of knowledge (ontologies) and human-curated data to return an answer including graphs and other representations. The ontologies and data are managed by Wolfram employees who must input new ontologies and data by hand or, occasionally, with the assistance of programmatic tools. It is expected that an Application Programming Interface (API) will eventually be available, although it is not known what the API will be used for.

Unlike traditional search engines Wolfram Alpha does not search online documents, and thus does not return answers to “fuzzy” questions, such as opinion or advice. Instead, the scope of answers is limited to the knowledge that has already been modeled and encoded in the ontologies and the associated data. In this way the system can generate knowledge that was previously unknown. It is thought that while Wolfram will concentrate on scientific and technical information the system may eventually be able to answer questions in other domains, such as stock information, geography and history. In theory, any question with a factual answer could be answered by Wolfram Alpha.

Sunday, May 21, 2017

Last week’s police helicopter accident in eastern Slovakia was caused by technical failure and not human error, said the Ministry of Interior of the Slovak Republic on Friday. The statement is based on preliminary flight recorder data analysis. Ministry spokesperson Petar Lazarov confirmed the flight recorder and remains of the helicopter will be sent to the United States for further analysis. Helicopter crash occurred during a training exercise on May 10 shortly before 2:30 PM CEST at Prešov Air Base near Prešov, resulting in deaths of two crewmembers and serious injuries of both pilots.

According to initial reports by the Slovak Police Force, the helicopter spiraled down from a height of about 100 metres and 200 metres away from the point of take-off. Slovak tabloid newspaper Plus Jeden De? wrote that, according to a source from the forensic team that analysed flight recorders data, both rotors failed at the same time.

The accident caused fatal injuries to two Fire and Rescue Corps firefighters, First Lieutenant ^{((sk))Slovak language: ?nadporu?ík} Peter To?or, born 1974, and Lieutenant Colonel ^{((sk))Slovak language: ?podplukovník} Radoslav Lacko, born 1968. According to reports, one died on the site, and one in the Louis Pasteur University Hospital in Košice. “The patient suffered serious head and chest injuries. Our doctors resuscitated him for about 50 minutes. Ultimately, he died of his injuries,” said hospital spokesperson Ivana Stašková. Both firefighters were buried on May 16. The helicopter pilots were hospitalized with serious injuries in the Ján Adam Reiman Teaching Hospital with Polyclinic in Prešov. While one of them was stabilized and conscious already on May 10, suffering from right femoral fracture, right rib and facial bone fracture, the second one is still in serious condition at the Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Medicine, said hospital spokesperson Renáta Cenková.

The Bell 429 GlobalRanger helicopter, registration OM-BYM, was made in 2014 and commissioned by the Aviation Department of the Ministry of Interior on August 17, 2015. The Aviation Department later commissioned another Bell 429 helicopter, registration OM-BYD. According to Bell Helicopter, the primary purpose of both these helicopters was to be “border protection, search and rescue, natural disaster relief missions and road traffic law enforcement”.

Bell Helicopter reacted on the incident, expressing condolences and willingness to assist with the investigation. Members of the National Council started their late-afternoon session on May 10 with a minute of silence for the victims of the crash. Other government officials expressed their condolences as well, including the President Andrej Kiska, the Prime Minister Robert Fico, and the Mayor of Prešov Andrea Tur?anová.

This accident was not the first Bell 429 helicopter crash in Slovakia. On September 7 of last year, an Air-Transport Europe rescue helicopter crashed near Banská Bystrica, killing all three crewmen and a patient aboard. Investigation is still in progress and no preliminary results are known.

Monday, March 21, 2005A piece of driftwood in the shape of a crucifix is listed for sale on eBay with a starting bid price of $25,000. The seller, known as “Marzipanda,” from Scottsdale, Arizona lists its description as a “Natural Found Wood Jesus Christ Crucifix Cross Easter.”

Maripanda describes the discovery of the piece as, “My very dear friend found this amazing natural driftwood while hiking a few years ago. So striking because it clearly resembles the Lord and all the details.”

Expensive found art Christiana made international headlines in November 2004 when a Florida woman named Diana Duyser sold a partially eaten grilled cheese sandwich on eBay for $28,000 to Canadian online gambling website, GoldenPalace.com, after claiming she saw the likeness of the Virgin Mary burned onto the toast.

But not all high-priced Christian fare on eBay is of dubious value. A perusal of Christian-themed items as of March 20, showed 13,944 for sale on eBay. They ranged from other found art to some very expensive and authenticated rare art.

One such item has an eBay seller from Tel-Aviv, Israel listing a 19th century iron wall plaque with a starting bid of $30,000 and a shipping cost of $2,000, making it the most-expensive Christian religious item listed for sale on the auction web site.

Under the “Christian Icons” section of the site, the 14 cast iron plaques are advertised to have been made in 1855 and portrays “Jesus in Jerusalem” with the 14 stations of Christ.

Another high-priced Christian-themed item is a set of chalices and paten in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida for $3,550. The gold-plated silver is thought to have been made in the 1870s.