- Who knew that the waste from dairy farms could be so helpful to motorists? No, the moo-cow refuse isn’t being turned into some sort of alternative fuel; it’s being turned into a substance being used to make icy roads safer this winter for drivers in the state of Washington. Some state transportation officials who like to think they are comedians in the making are calling it free whey for the freeway. To be fair, it’s not exactly whey, but rather the wastewater byproduct amassed by dairy farms after they use salt to separate curds and whey during the cheese-making process. In the past, this waste would end up in Puget Sound after being dumped in Seattle sewers, but it is now being donated to the state Department of Transportation by the Darigold dairy farm conglomerate. The company has part of its operation located in the town Sunnyside, which is close enough to the Chehalis WSDOT office to transport the waste water and combine it with rock salt and molasses to make an “anti-icer” to be put down on roads before winter weather hits. Using this cheesy byproduct will allow the state Department of Transportation to save on salt costs for roads in 11 counties in Southwest Washington and on the Olympic Peninsula. It’s an advance in road maintenance technology that has been six years in the making, as WSDOT has been testing different mixtures of the product since 2002. The mixture contains three parts rock salt, added to the partially salted wastewater, and topped off with fermented sugar cane juice and calcium chloride. The salt fills its normal role, melting the snow and ice, while the sugar helps bind the compound to the road surface. By including calcium chloride, the compound is effective at temperatures down to 10 degrees. According to a spokesman for WSDOT, the new solution has helped drastically reduce the number of accidents on a stretch of road known as White Pass, where the mix was initially tested, from an average of eight per week to six accidents for the whole season last winter. Motorists should also be pleased, as the product is not significantly harmful to cars and actually 77 percent less corrosive than using salt alone. So enjoy your safer roads this winter, Washingtonians, and be sure to thank your local dairy cows for their help…..
- As you might expect from a network whose weekly fall schedule has been filled with ginormous piles of sh*t, NBC will be offering viewers a drastically revamped lineup come January. For better (almost a given) or worse, the reshuffled lineup will sideline (temporarily in some cases) a handful of shows to make room for some new programming. And wouldn’t you know it, one of the new shows is all but certain to be even worse than any of NBC’s current shows! That show would be Superstars of the Dance, brainchild of So You Think You Can Dance boss Nigel Lythgoe, and it will be built as an internationally flavored "Olympic dance-off" and hosted by the egotistical blowhard Michael Flatley- oh, props on securing the services of a guy whose Lord of the Dance show hasn’t been on the cultural radar in nearly a decade, NBC - and it premieres Sunday, Jan. 9, before moving to Mondays. Here’s when the unfortunate twist comes, at least for those who are fans of the network’s one great show, Heroes. This new dance debacle will air for several weeks from 8 to 10 pm/ET Monday nights, bumping both Chuck and Heroes (but only until February). And what kind of garbage show has NBC found to follow up such a piece of crap? Why, nothing less than a new unscripted series from the teeth-bleaching, man-blouse-wearing, tip-frosting hack Ryan Seacrest would do, right? Amazingly, that’s just what NBC has in mind with Momma’s Boys, brought to you by the man who emcees the biggest abortion in musical history, American Karaoke. Tuesdays will stay the same, with The Biggest Loser: Couples and SVU, and on Wednesdays (starting Jan. 7), Knight Rider will remain at 8, while SVU repeats will spell Life until February. Thursdays are the same as well, but Friday nights will feature an extra helping of a man who, quite frankly, creeps me out - Howie Mandel. Howie will be hosting Howie Do It, a new hidden-camera show that promises more of the creepy How-man and that weird, unnerving hand wave/salute thing he does on Deal or No Deal. Following that up will be something that excites a lot of people - just not me. The return of Friday Night Lights' will come on Jan. 16 as the football-themed show kicks off its third season. So to sum it up….NBC is going to continue to suck, ‘nuff said…….
- There really wasn’t any other way for the W. administration to celebrate the final holiday season of its disastrous, apocalyptic eight years in office. The worst president in the history of this nation wanted to invite American Jewish leaders to the White House Hanukkah reception, so he and his staff did the obvious thing: send out a nice invitation by mail to those they wanted to have attend. The only problem: a picture of a Christmas tree adorned the cover of the invite, which is not the first thing you would expect to see on an invitation to an event celebrating Hanukkah. I’m torn in deciding the cause of this f’up, because on one hand, it might just be an honest mistake, a simple oversight….but this is W., so the real likelihood is that he has no freaking clue what Judaism is, what holidays they celebrate and thinks that the Star of David is just two blue triangles put together to signal a place where you can get a plate of nachos. In case you’re wondering what exactly the Jewish leaders received, the invitation was sent on behalf of the President and First Lady, requesting "the pleasure of your company at a Hanukkah reception," and it bore an image of a Clydesdale horse drawn cart, carrying the White House Christmas tree, with a Christmas wreath-adorned White House in the background. As you might expect Mrs. W’s press secretary, Sally McDonough, fell on the grenade by blaming it on a "staff mistake" in not printing separate cards for the different White House holiday events. Yeah, sure, whatever you say, Sally. All I know is that I would have been stunned (and probably a little disappointed) if this had played out any other way……
- As badly as I feel for the travelers stranded in Thailand, to those people I have to say: Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Yes, it’s time to spin around the globe and celebrate acts of social dissidence and dissent, even if those acts happen to inconvenience a few (thousand) travelers trying to get home. People like American Kerri Gannon and her husband, who were stranded in an airport in Bangkok, Thailand, Wednesday, because the facility was occupied by crowds of protesters and closed are just going to have to get over it, because dammit, riots and protests are bigger than any of us. When thousands of anti-government protesters assemble and storm the nation’s airports to protest the return of Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat from an economic summit in Peru, you need to respect their efforts and not complain. You know I love any protest or riot, but one in which explosions rock two Bangkok airports, four people are wounded and multiple airports were shut down I love even more. Leading the protests is a group called the People's Alliance for Democracy, and its leaders have said it will not end its occupation of the airports until the prime minister resigns. Fair enough, especially when you understand that the PAD accuses Wongsawat’s government of being a front for ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. So far, the protests have been a rousing success, forcing authorities to cancel all incoming and outgoing flights at Suvarnabhumi International Airport, which handles 60,000 incoming passengers daily. Additionally, pro- and anti-government protesters also exchanged gunfire Tuesday, and protesters with golf clubs and long wooden sticks clashed with airport taxi drivers, with each side throwing objects at the other. Golf clubs? Yup, always good to incorporate a theme into your protest, so a sports theme definitely works. The long wooden sticks are a bit primitive and basic, but I’ll allow it. The protestors are also blockading people trying to get to one of the airports, although they are being courteous enough to divert people to different roads rather than just simply attacking innocent bystanders for no reason. Yes, a violent, angry protest with some staying power, but one with a little consideration for the well-being of your fellow man, the best of both worlds……
- Stephon Marbury’s teammates seem to be getting a little bit tired of his continued refusal to don a uniform and actually play the game he is making $21 million to be a part of this season. Marbury has been inactive all season because he’s washed up, overpaid and unnecessary, but for two recent games, the New York Knicks actually did have need of Starbury’s services on the court. Because of two major trades completed last week, the Knicks were down to seven or eight active players for two games (12 is the norm), the second of which came Wednesday night against perennial Eastern Conference power Detroit. Both times, head coach Mike D’Antoni has gone to Marbury and asked him to play. Both times, Starbury has said no. Now, at least one of his teammates - well, the guys whose bench he sits on and whom he watches play while wearing a nice, tailored suit - has had enough. Knicks forward Quentin Richardson made it clear after the game against the Pistons that he's had enough of Marbury. “He hasn't played with us all year,” Richardson said. “Regardless of what you have going on with the organization or what you have going on with your coach or whatever -- you're not going to allow your teammates to be left out there the way we were basically being left out there.” Making matters worse for the Knicks on Wednesday was the fact that Richardson was playing hurt with an arm injury and Nate Robinson missed the game with a groin strain, leaving the Knicks with eight players before forward Wilson Chandler was ejected in the third quarter. “This is directed at us regardless if you're trying to stick it to whoever you're trying to stick it to,” Richardson said of Marbury's selfish standoff with the team that has resulted in him refusing to play. “At the end of the day we're shorthanded, people are hurt. Once again, I don't pay attention to [Stephon] because I don't look at him as a teammate anyway.” Yeah, I’m going to go ahead and say that 1) this has officially become a major, divisive issue for the Knicks, and 2) Richardson isn’t the only Knick who feels this way - he’s just the first one to express it publicly. Repeats of the seven- or eight-man roster for games are unlikely, as the players acquired in the aforementioned trades are finally all ready to play and the team should be at full strength from here on out. But the damage done in these two games to Starbury’s rep and his relationship with his teammates…..that will last quite a while…..
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