Chemical Plant Accident Creates Laughing Gas Cloud

An accident in a chemical plant Friday created a frightening-looking cloud of “laughing gas,” government and emergency officials said. Nobody was reported to be injured _ or to be giggling uncontrollably.

The Northern Ireland Department of the Environment said workers at Albion Chemicals Ltd. poured nitric acid into a disposal container that was contaminated, causing a reaction that produced plumes of nitrous oxide.

The gas, inhaled as an analgesic, has been known since the late 18th century as “laughing gas.” It has a range of medical and industrial uses and is not toxic.

Greig Laing, Albion Chemicals’ director of human resources at its headquarters in Leeds, England, declined to describe the exact chemicals and reactions involved in the accident. He said the fumes created were “fully controlled,” and caused “no injuries and no environmental damage.”

Belfast police and firefighters launched an emergency plan following first reports of the accident, which suggested an explosion had created a haze of unknown, potentially toxic fumes.

Una Devlin, spokeswoman for the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service, said firefighters sprayed the gas plume with water mist and shut off the plant’s sewage connections to nearby Belfast Harbor. The operation lasted about three hours.

She said fire crews donned full-body protective suits and gas masks as they doused the container, which continued to emit fumes of the gas for more than an hour. – cbs

Watermelon Fetches $6K In Tokyo Auction

A black jumbo watermelon auctioned in northern Japan fetched a record $6,100 Friday, making it the most expensive watermelon ever sold in the country – and possibly the world.

The 17-pound premium Densuke watermelon, one of only 65 from the first harvest of the season, was purchased by a marine products dealer who said he wanted to support local agriculture, according to Kyodo News agency. The fruit is grown only on the northern island of Hokkaido.

In a country where melons are a luxury item commonly given as gifts, the watermelon’s hefty price tag follows another jaw-dropping auction last month, where a pair of Yubari cantaloupe melons sold for a record $23,500.

But for watermelon, Friday’s winning bid drew a gasp even from veterans of the expensive-fruit market.

“This is the highest price on record for a Densuke watermelon, and that probably means it’s the highest of any watermelon in Japanese history,” said Kazuyoshi Ohira, a spokesman for the Tohma Agricultural Cooperative in Hokkaido.

Growers expect to produce about 9,000 Densuke watermelons this year, Ohira said.

For seasonal, high-end fruits like the Densuke watermelon and the Yubari cantaloupes, Japanese buyers are often willing to pay top prices at auction for the prestige of owning the very first ones of the year.

Unseasonably warm weather in April and May have helped boost sugar content and overall quality, and consequently prices, of the 2008 watermelons, Ohira said. – cbs

The 10 Brainiest Places to Retire

Just because you hit your 60s, it doesn’t mean your brain starts to power down. Just the opposite. Your noodle needs more stimulation than ever, and, finally, you have the time to supply the required intellectual input. And picking a place to retire can be key to that process. For retirees who have no desire to stop learning—and that’s, like, pretty much everyone—there are plenty of American communities that boast thriving intellectual centers where cultural activities keep residents (and their brains) as busy and interested as they want to be.

What makes the difference? A city with a large local university might offer a colorful slate of arts or educational events nearly every evening. Some suburbs have found a way to create unique learning opportunities for residents, who still have an easy route into the neighboring metropolis.

U.S. News consulted our list of more than 1,000 Best Places to Retire and came up with 10 retirement destinations that attract highly educated folks. (And you can use Best Places to Retire to do more than seek out intellectual excitement: A search tool allows you to build your own list of retirement spots based on your personal preferences, including region, climate, healthcare, recreational and cultural activities, and other factors.)

One brainy spot that won’t surprise: Berkeley, Calif., where residents might head for a screening of a film on urban organic farming in Cuba at the local Unitarian Universalist congregation, attend a University of California-Berkeley professor’s speech on counterinsurgency in Iraq, or get a tour of the UC Botanical Garden. While traditional bingo is on tap at the South Berkeley Senior Center, residents can also learn a less common skill like self-acupressure or take a class on the millinery arts, says director Larry Taylor.

Across the map in Chapel Hill, N.C., residents might spend their evenings paddling out in kayaks to watch the stars with an astronomy educator from the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Boulder, Colo., may be best known for its environmental-protection efforts and green savvy, but this city offers its residents a wealth of cultural activities. Albert Boggess, former project scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope, and his wife, Nancy, also a former research scientist for NASA, retired to Boulder in 1994, drawn by both the climate and an academic community that included many of their colleagues. “It’s a university town, which is important to us, and there are all sorts of activities which come with that automatically,” Albert Boggess says. “There’s lots of good music here, both classical music and popular music. And that appeals to us.”

Upper St. Clair, Pa., is near Pittsburgh and has 29 area colleges, including Carnegie Mellon University, while the quintessential college town of Ann Arbor, Mich., offers an array of intellectual and cultural programs through the University of Michigan‘s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

West Lafayette, Ind., is home to Purdue University, which hosts lectures and brings in ballets and plays—”a variety of different programs that you wouldn’t necessarily normally get in this size community,” says Joann Wade, president of the Lafayette-West Lafayette Convention and Visitors Bureau. The city’s nearly 29,000 permanent residents can also get “bigger-city opportunities,” Wade says, by driving an hour to Indianapolis or two hours to Chicago.

Hoboken, N.J., and Brookline, Mass., also have the big-city experience close at hand. Hoboken is just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, while many Brookline residents commute the short distance to work in Boston’s medical centers and universities.

Some suburbs have a main attraction all their own. Reston, Va., was developed as a planned community or “new town” in the 1960s, and it’s only a half-hour drive to Washington, D.C., and its panoply of world-class museums. Out west, Lake Oswego, Ore., hugs the city of Portland but also offers culture and beauty of its own, making the most of its 405-acre lake.

The brainiest places to retire:

• Ann Arbor, Mich.
• Berkeley, Calif.
• Boulder, Colo.
• Brookline, Mass.
• Chapel Hill, N.C.
• Hoboken, N.J.
• Lake Oswego, Ore.
• Reston, Va.
• Upper St. Clair, Pa.
• West Lafayette, Ind.

- yahoo

Fire at Governor’s Mansion in Austin ruled arson

An early morning fire at the Governor’s Mansion today was intentionally set, a state fire investigator said.

State Fire Marshal Paul Maldonado declined to discuss further details but said there was no indication the fire was intended as a direct threat to Gov. Rick Perry.

No one was in the building, which has been closed several months for renovation, when the fire broke out. The governor has been living in a rented house in suburban Austin since last fall.

He and his wife, Anita, are in Stockholm, Sweden, finishing up a weeklong, trade-related trip to Europe.

The fire, discovered by security officers about 1:45 a.m., was under control by 6:30 a.m., but there were still hot spots in the building. Flames broke through a portion of the roof about 9:30 a.m. but were quickly extinguished.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was assisting the state Fire Marshal’s office in the investigation. Maldonado indicated security cameras posted around the building were helpful to investigators.

But officials declined to discuss more details, including how an arsonist could have gone undetected by Department of Public Safety troopers assigned to secure the building and its grounds.

Damage to the 152-year-old historic structure is “extraordinary, bordering on catastrophic,” including a partially collapsed roof, said Perry spokesman Robert Black.

Millions of dollars worth of antique furnishings, portraits and other heirlooms had been removed from the mansion and placed in storage before renovation began. But Black said it was impossible to calculate the historic value of the building itself.

He said officials hoped the first floor could be structurally salvaged, but there was more uncertainty about saving the second floor.

Ironically, one of the purposes of the renovation project was to install a sprinkler system in the building, which had none. Before work began, the mansion had a fire alarm system on the first floor but none on the second floor, where the governor and his family lived.

Former Gov. Mark White, who lived in the Mansion from 1983-1986 and took office shortly before a fire heavily damaged the state Capitol, said he was devasted by the latest fire.

“We just must rebuild it,” he said, urging state officials to use the occasion to fully restore the Mansion to its original structure, much as state government did to the Capitol following the 1983 fire.

Security officers staying on the mansion grounds in a carriage house were alerted by a fire alarm triggered by smoke getting into the air conditioning system on the mansion’s first floor, Black said.

The fire quickly spread to the second floor and the ceiling. The problem was compounded by old air shafts and new holes and shafts that had been opened up by workers on the renovation project.

About 100 firefighters responded, and none were injured. At the height of the fire, they were pumping 8,000 gallons of water a minute on the roof from four ladder trucks and other equipment, Austin Fire Department spokesperson Dawn Clopton said.

The Perrys moved out of the mansion last fall into a $9,900 a month rental house to allow for the renovation, a project that was expected to be completed next spring and cost about $10 million.

Among other things, outdated plumbing also is being replaced.

Black said the governor was notified of the fire about 2 a.m. Austin time but planned to conclude his European trip before returning to Austin, as scheduled, on Tuesday.

Perry is scheduled to talk about wind energy at an American Chamber of Commerce event in Stockholm on Monday.

The columns in front of the building were heavily charred, and shrubbery around the building was singed. – chron

Canada deploying cardboard cops to nab speeders

Police in westernmost Canada are deploying life-size cardboard replicas of traffic cops pointing a radar gun at oncoming traffic to try to reduce speeding and road fatalities, authorities said.

And these mock-ups are so realistic that while being tested on a Vancouver street this week, “a tow-truck driver pulled up and started talking to it,” Staff Sergeant Ralph Pauw told a press conference on Thursday.

Eight of the cut-outs will initially be deployed on city streets, Pauw said. And in case some drivers aren’t fooled by the facsimiles, “there may or may not be a (real) police officer behind one of these cut-outs,” he added.

The police initiative called Operation Silhouette follows similar trickery used elsewhere, including “bait cars” for thieves, fake intersection cameras and mechanical moose used by Canadian wildlife officers to nab poachers. – yahoo

How much can you give?

C: And if you are right, “Xeno,” what then?

X: Ah… I hadn’t thought of that. I’m actually bad at chess. I like it and I play a lot, but I don’t take enough time to think far enough ahead. If I’m right, the consequences could be bad for me personally, that’s what.

C: Or someone else. Let me count the ways.

X: “Can’t handle drugs“?… Did you…

C: Cause and effect.

X: [Long silence.... ] When I was a little kid, a friend and I took garbage can lids out to a high school field. We threw something in the air you could see from far away. Our plan was to “attract bullies and fight them.”

C: How did that work out for you?

X: Got beat up.

C: Inadequate protection.

X: We wore masks to hide our secret identities.

C: Coward.

X: So, Jo Ann was right about me? Her character made me angry, because she was right? When it comes down to it, I’d rather protect people I love than expose criminal activity.

C: Punk-ass little coward.

X: I’m not alone, others have been threatened into silence. That’s why we are were we are today.

C: Pathetic chicken, you make me sick.

X: Picking fights you can’t win against a stronger force is not bravery.

C: Chickens have very small brains. We cage them. They work for us, then we eat them.

X: No qualms about killing?

C: Perhaps you think you are being treated unfairly?

X: Collateral damage so you can protect the chicken food source?

C: Politics is a dirty business. Enjoy what you have while you have it.

X: I am one small fish, but one of many. You are vastly outnumbered.

C: One small sheep. Fear keeps the flock going in the right direction.  Dogs only need to bite a few nonconformists. Social Learning Theory.

X: I am not The Dark Knight.

C: Your cover is blown. We know where you live.

X: I’ll keep that in mind.