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Wednesday, December 23, 2009
News / Biz Duke Energy to pay big bucks for pollution problem
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 11:46 AM
Just like momma says: You make the mess, you clean it up.
From The Wall Street Journal:
Duke Energy Corp. (DUK) will spend $93 million to resolve violations of federal emissions rules at a coal-fired power plant it owns in Indiana, federal officials said Tuesday.Under the settlement, Duke needs to either convert unit one and three at the plants to natural gas or shut them down. As for two additional units at the plant, the utility must install new pollution controls to reduce emission of sulfur dioxide.
Read the entire U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's press release here. Here's a snippet:
Duke Energy, one of the largest electric power companies in the nation, will spend approximately $85 million to significantly reduce harmful air pollution at an Indiana power plant and pay a $1.75 million civil penalty, under a settlement to resolve violations of federal clean air laws, the Justice Department and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today. The settlement also requires Duke to spend $6.25 million on environmental mitigation projects.The settlement is anticipated to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions at the Gallagher Plant by almost 35,000 tons per year, an 86 percent reduction when compared to 2008 emissions. This is equivalent to the emissions from 500,000 heavy duty semi trucks, which is more than all of the trucks registered in Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and Ohio combined. Sulfur dioxide harms the environment and human health.
Boomer with Attitude / News Burr named D.C.'s top party animal
Posted By John Grooms on Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 11:45 AM
The Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan group that works for transparency in government, has just unveiled their list of the "Top Congressional Partiers" for 2009. We’re so very proud to announce that North Carolina’s own Sen. Richard Burr was named Washington’s top party animal. What it means is that Burr held more parties and fundraisers with lobbyists and D.C. insiders — 35 in all — than any other member of Congress. It’s heartening to know that one of our two senators is getting involved in the real business of national government, i.e., sucking up to lobbyists and raking in the dough while he’s got the chance. Look for this award, and Burr’s cozy relationship with lobbyists, to be a big issue in his 2010 re-election campaign.
Deliver Us From Weasels, a collection of articles and columns by John Grooms, is available at Borders-Morrocroft, Park Road Books, Paper Skyscraper, Joseph-Beth Booksellers, and Literary Bookpost in Salisbury, or directly from the publisher at www.mainstreetrag.com/store/NewReleases.php.
Arts / Today's Top Five / News Today's Top 5: Wednesday
Posted By Anita Overcash on Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 8:00 AM
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today, Dec. 23, 2009 — as selected by the folks at Creative Loafing.
• Christmas Glass Night at Flying Saucer
• Josh Daniel and Friends at The Philosopher's Stone Tavern
• Holiday Lights at The Garden at Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden
• Pure Mistletoe Party at Halo
• Tis' the Season at Wachovia Playhouse
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Boomer with Attitude / News Foxx's new job raising eyebrows
Posted By John Grooms on Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 8:15 PM
Oh boy, here we go. The revelation last week by the Business Journal that Mayor Anthony Foxx has a new job — in-house attorney for DesignLine International — is raising some eyebrows. Now that the daily paper has run a story about it, albeit a week late, you can be sure conservatives will be raising hell. The trouble is that, in a way, they’d have a point — or at least a justification for their carping.
DesignLine International is a maker of hybrid buses, and does business with the city, so even if Foxx’s relationship is completely on the up and up — and, to date, there’s no reason to think otherwise — the possibility of a major conflict of interest will hover over the city’s dealings with the company.
Foxx told the Observer he will not lobby other cities for the manufacturer, and did, in fact, recuse himself in the Spring when City Council voted on a matter related to DesignLine (Foxx started doing some legal work for the company in March.) The mayor and city attorney Mac McCarley both say a conflict of interest can be avoided, even if DesignLine sells buses to CATS.
Former mayor McCrory worked part-time for Duke Energy and although no one directly accused McCrory of working behind the scenes for Duke, he did spend time shilling for nuclear power in repeated public statements.
The conservative Web site MeckDeck is already bemoaning Foxx’s ties to DesignLine, and clearly combing through documents in order to find a conflict of interest. Maybe there’s one, maybe there’s not. The point here is that conflicts of interest — and even the appearance of the possibility of a conflict of interest – can cast a shadow over an administration, and often turn into serious distractions for municipal leaders. As we’ve repeatedly pointed out, if Charlotte would make the mayor and council jobs full-time rather than part-time, these conflicts would come up less often, and would bring broader confidence in local government from voters.
News / Biz More new jobs for the Q.C.
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 4:08 PM
We must have been a very good city this year. How do we know? Because Zenta, a big company right here in l'il 'ol Charlotte, along with Mayor Foxx and Governor Perdue, announced they're granting our Christmas wish: They're going to hire folks 1,000 in 2010 -- that's on top of the 500 the company hired this year.
So, all you real estate and finance-minded folks who've been living on the government dole, dust of your resume and have your suit cleaned, it's time to go back to work.
Zenta is investing $2 million in the expansion. The company will receive an N.C. job development grant worth $8.6 million.In August, Zenta announced a 500-job expansion here in a Forest Point Boulevard office building. The company has an option for an additional 16,000 square feet in the building and could expand into a second building in the office park formerly occupied by defunct mortgage lender EquiFirst. Zenta also has about 100 employees at 200 S. Tryon St. And in a previous interview, Senior Vice President Henry Santos indicated it would ultimately make economic sense to consolidate the two Charlotte locations.
Read the rest of this Charlotte Business Journal article, by Adam O'Daniel, here.
I'm sure your new Zenta boss won't be anything like this. Whew.
News Beauty's all about the average
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 4:06 PM
Well. Now that scientists have discovered what it takes to be beautiful (for, let's be real, white women), let's try working on something that's actually important.
Here, they're saying if the dimensions of your face fall into a certain mathematical standard, everyone will think your beautiful. Way to depress all the ladies who's faces don't fit this beauty average, though I'm sure plastic surgeons around the globe are cheering.
For every woman who has ever obsessed that her chin was too long or that her eyes were set too close together, scientists appear to have a new message: You might be right.Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, claim they’ve discovered the ideal alignment of female facial features, a pair of measurements that explain why one woman is perceived as attractive and the other, well, isn’t.
It all has to do with the horizontal distance between the eyes and the vertical distance between the eyes and the mouth, says Pamela M. Pallett, a researcher who believes she has identified new “golden ratios” for facial beauty.
That may be bad news for gals who don’t conform, but the upside, says Pallett, is that even if your face isn’t perfectly proportioned, a strategic haircut can help.“Everybody can achieve these golden ratios,” said Pallett.
“Averageness has always been known to be important,” in measuring attractiveness, said Pallett, who suggested that people are biologically hardwired to prefer typical faces rather than exotic ones.
Read the rest of this MSNBC.com article, by JoNel Aleccia, here.
Arts / News Carolina Voices to hold auditions
Posted By Anita Overcash on Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 4:04 PM
Carolina Voices, a volunteer-based choral organization in Charlotte - which, by the way, puts together the annual concert, Singing Christmas Tree, each year - announced that it will be holding auditions for all of its choirs, including the MainStage Choir, Festival Singers, VOX and Impromptu. Auditions will be held Jan. 5 and Jan. 7, from 6 p.m.-9 p.m., at Myers Park Baptist Church's Shalom Hall (located at 1900 Queens Road).
News / Biz The Q.C.'s PR problem
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 11:31 AM
City leaders are mobilizing to figure out how to re-frame our city.
Flush with big banks, big-league sports and big ambitions, Charlotte has basked in the steady flow of national headlines proclaiming its place as a leading New South city for years.The headlines are still coming. The basking? Not so much. Because the storyline has taken a sharp negative turn.
The fawning of a September 2008 Time story — “Charlotte is soaring, with 28 construction cranes downtown...” — has been replaced in recent months with downbeat Queen City profiles in The Washington Post and Canada’s most-influential newspaper, The Globe and Mail of Toronto. Both ran extensive feature stories that focused on rising unemployment and housing busts here.
The Toronto account included a blaring headline that read, “Charlotte: The town that Bank of America took down.”
Now Charlotte is getting ready to fight back on the public-relations front.
Read the rest of this Charlotte Business Journal article, by Erik Spanberg, here.
Here's a goofy Charlotte YouTube video by FreewayJim:
Arts / Today's Top Five / News Today's Top 5: Tuesday
Posted By Anita Overcash on Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 8:00 AM
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today, Dec. 22, 2009 — as selected by the folks at Creative Loafing.
• Lois Mailou Jones: A Life in Vibrant Color exhibition at Mint Museum of Art
• Ken Evans at Lake Norman Comedy Zone
• 36th Year Anniversary Party with The Parodi Kings at Double Door Inn
• Tis' the Season at Wachovia Playhouse
• Touch One Tuesdays at Wine Up
Monday, December 21, 2009
Boomer with Attitude / News Infected crap flows into Irwin Creek
Posted By John Grooms on Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 5:24 PM
The county announced that around 47,000 gallons of wastewater containing bacteria, viruses and other disease-causing agents was released into Irwin Creek over the weekend. An equipment malfunction at the Irwin Creek sewage plant resulted in the wastewater not going through ultraviolet disinfection for seven minutes. The Observer is reporting that this event means the water flowing into the creek was “partially disinfected,” but — correct me if I'm wrong here — if the UV disinfecting process didn’t work for seven minutes, then that means the water released during those seven minutes wasn’t disinfected, period. OK, I know it’s tricky writing news stories quickly, particularly during the holidays when many reporters’ colleagues are on vacation and things get super-rushed, but come on. There’s a huge difference between “partially disinfected” water (which is bad enough), and, in essence, “infected” water that could cause real health problems. Hopefully, writer Bruce Henderson will soon report on what effects the snafu could have on public health, and what the county plans to do to keep the UV disinfection from shutting down again.
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