Coast Guard surveillance video of the T2 Lab Explosion. The Coast Guard has numerous surveillance cameras watching over the port of Jacksonville, Fla. This helps Coast Guard crews maintain complete maritime domain awareness. The video surveillance system is a new capability the Coast Guard has developed with its new Sector Command Center – Joint, a multi-agency initiative to improve the security of the port of Jacksonville. This video is being released after ensuring it did not violate the security of the new system. Video courtesy of Coast Guard Sector Jacksonville, Fla.

T2 Lab Explosion

“The blast at T2 was among the most powerful ever examined by the CSB.”

“…There are several steps in the process [of producing the gasoline additive MMT]; the first step involved heating and reacting organic materials with metallic sodium. It was during this step the [batch] reactor ruptured. Prior to the rupture, eyewitnesses reported hearing loud hissing, seeing vapor venting, which indicates the development of excess temperature and pressure inside the reactor.”

“Following the rupture of the reactor, its flammable contents mixed with air and ignited, releasing large amounts of thermal energy as seen on the U.S. Coast Guard infrared video released last week. [CG video here] The reactor was designed for high pressure and had steel walls 3 inches thick. Under normal temperatures and conditions, it would require a pressure of several thousand pounds per square inch to rupture this vessel.”

“We recovered large portions of the vessel’s top head—weighing hundreds of pounds—approximately one quarter-mile away. This gives an idea of the tremendous power of the explosion.” (emphasis added)

See the next post for a link to the video... It's a very big "release of thermal energy" !!

Jacksonville T2 Site Still Too Dangerous for Investigators

DENVER - A man who had a two-bag-a-day popcorn habit - believed to be the only consumer to develop the “popcorn lung” that has plagued factory workers -sued yesterday claiming injury and saying the maker had failed to warn of the risks of sniffing the “buttery aroma.”

Wayne Watson’s attorney, Kenneth McClain, said the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court names The Kroger Co. A Kroger spokeswoman declined to comment.

Watson’s case of “popcorn lung” and his two-bag-a-day popcorn diet gained national attention last year when doctors diagnosed him with the rare lung condition linked to the flavoring chemical diacetyl.

The lawsuit, seeking unspecified damages, says Kroger “failed to warn that preparing microwave popcorn in a microwave oven as intended and smelling the buttery aroma could expose the consumer to an inhalation hazard and a risk of lung injury.”

Popcorn lung, also called bronchiolitis obliterans, has affected workers mixing vats of flavor, who have severe respiratory illnesses from inhaling diacetyl vapors.

You butter believe it: Man sues over ‘popcorn lung’

In addition, the information on the laptops was not encrypted.

See this is what gets me is that they "The City of Nashville" and the state for that matter got done in the butt by nobody but (no pun) their own stupidity.

Personal information should have been protected, but was not. The lack of physical security should have not been an issue.

All i see is the press talking about the lack of physical security.

Someone needs to loose their job, period. The IT people in Nashville are really that incompetent?

Being 'Proactive' Could Have Lessened Election Theft Risk

The election is over, the results are now known.
The will of the people has clearly been shown.
We should show by our thoughts and our words and our deeds
That unity's just what our country now needs.
Let's all get together.
Let bitterness pass.
I'll hug your elephant.
You kiss my ass!

Still stands for 2008 I think...

:P

This calls for my favorite political poem...

After her third-place finish in Iowa, there are reports that Hillary Clinton's campaign is thinking of running negative ads against Barack Obama. Humorist Brian Unger provides the Clinton campaign with some ready-made negative ads, free of charge.

Hahahah ! :P "Give it up..."

Unger Report:Making Negative Fun! {MP3}

The new 6ft (1.8m) ball, weighing about 1,100lbs (500kg), is covered with 9,576 light-emitting diodes that use the same amount of electricity as 10 toasters.

hmm ... Now what they need to do is make each LED module with RGB LEDs and make the computer controlled...

:P

NY Times Square ball 'goes green'

Effective January 1, 2008, the following rules apply to the spare lithium batteries you carry with you in case the battery in a device runs low:

* Spare batteries are the batteries you carry separately from the devices they power. When batteries are installed in a device, they are not considered spare batteries.
* You may not pack a spare lithium battery in your checked baggage
* You may bring spare lithium batteries with you in carry-on baggage – see our spare battery tips and how-to sections to find out how to pack spare batteries safely!
* Even though we recommend carrying your devices with you in carry-on baggage as well, if you must bring one in checked baggage, you may check it with the batteries installed.

The following quantity limits apply to both your spare and installed batteries. The limits are expressed in grams of “equivalent lithium content.” 8 grams of equivalent lithium content is approximately 100 watt-hours. 25 grams is approximately 300 watt-hours:

* Under the new rules, you can bring batteries with up to 8-gram equivalent lithium content. All lithium ion batteries in cell phones are below 8 gram equivalent lithium content. Nearly all laptop computers also are below this quantity threshold.
* You can also bring up to two spare batteries with an aggregate equivalent lithium content of up to 25 grams, in addition to any batteries that fall below the 8-gram threshold. Examples of two types of lithium ion batteries with equivalent lithium content over 8 grams but below 25 are shown below.
* For a lithium metal battery, whether installed in a device or carried as a spare, the limit on lithium content is 2 grams of lithium metal per battery.
* Almost all consumer-type lithium metal batteries are below 2 grams of lithium metal. But if you are unsure, contact the manufacturer!

New Lithium Battery Rules for U.S. Airplanes

"Nike does $14 billion in sales, and that is for every single thing it does from shoes to apparel," Rovell said. "Gatorade is a singular item, and it does $5 billion in sales. It's probably the second most-relevant brand in all of sports."

Cade and three colleagues developed Gatorade in 1965 to help the Florida Gators football team replace carbohydrates and electrolytes lost through sweat while playing in the swamp-like heat of Gainesville, Fla. The first batch cost $43 in supplies, and "sort of tasted like toilet bowl cleaner," Dana Shires, one of Cade's collaborators, told the Associated Press.

Researchers added sugar and lemon juice for flavor, and they left the rest to the likes of Steve Spurrier, the Florida quarterback who won the Heisman Trophy in 1966 while being fueled by Gatorade.

"The invention was great, but it needed the Florida Gators as a vehicle," Rovell said. "There had been other sports drinks available, but this was the perfect storm with Steve Spurrier and a good football team."

Cade and his collaborators were enmeshed in a legal dispute in the late 1960s and early '70s over rights to the Gatorade brand. The dispute was settled by awarding the university a 20 percent share of royalties, which to date total about $100 million. Gatorade today is marketed by Quaker Oats, a division of PepsiCo Inc.

A native of San Antonio and a Navy veteran, Cade graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. He practiced in Missouri, New York and in Dallas before moving to Florida in 1961. His research specialties included kidney disease, hypertension, exercise physiology, autism and schizophrenia.

He continued to work for the university until retiring at age 76 in November 2004 and was inducted in April into the university's athletics hall of fame.

Rovell, who while on vacation in Aruba raised a bottle of Gatorade — the wild berry Fierce flavor — in Cade's honor, described him as "the ultimate eccentric guy. He loved playing the violin, and he collected Studebaker cars. He became a rich man, but he always lived in the same ranch-style house.

"When you would ask him what he was most proud of, he wouldn't say, as you and I might, that he saw his invention every time he walked into a 7-Eleven or attended a sports event. He would talk about how Gatorade helped cure diarrhea-related diseases in Third World countries. He would always have some strange twist to talk about regarding the invention of Gatorade."

Rovell said he never asked the inventor what he thought about the modern sports cliché of Gatorade showers delivered to winning coaches but said, "He probably would have said, 'What a waste!' "

Gatorade inventor Dr. Robert Cade dead at age 80

Fran Townsend, President Bush's domestic security advisor, announced today that she was resigning, the latest in a series of senior officials to leave the administration as the president juggles a still-full agenda.

Townsend, who began working for the government as an assistant U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, N.Y., rose over two decades and the administrations of four presidents to become a regular fixture in the Oval Office and on Sunday talk shows -- delivering confidential reports to the president and security warnings to the public as the homeland security threat evolved.

She gave no reason for her departure, other than to say she wanted to shift to the private sector. In a handwritten letter she delivered to Bush on Nov. 6, Townsend said she was leaving with "a heavy heart" but had "decided to take a respite from public service."

Domestic security advisor is latest Bush aide to resign