Monthly Archives: January 2014

1/18/2014 -- Fracking Earthquakes, Steam Plumes, and Volcanoes -- Freedom Frequency
Covering the topics of Fracking Earthquakes, New Madrid seismic zone, Steam Plumes, and Dormant volcanoes.... Last nights 2 hour show was great!! This video ...

By: dutchsinse

Excerpt from:
1/18/2014 -- Fracking Earthquakes, Steam Plumes, and Volcanoes -- Freedom Frequency - Video

Searching for shelter in the face of liability lawsuits, Freedom Industries, the source of the big West Virginia chemical spill, has retreated into federal bankruptcy courtwith a Chapter 11 filing late Friday. In addition to temporarily freezing litigation against a debtor company, Chapter 11 proceedings allow the bankruptcy judge to sort out whose claims go first. A side benefit is that the process forces troubled corporations to reveal some secrets. Here are my initial findings on Freedom Industries:

The companys owner made one of the worst-timed acquisitions ever. We now know who owns Freedom Industries, which was identified on Jan. 9 as the company leaking a hazardous coal-processing chemical into the Elk River in Charleston. The lucky winner is J. Clifford Forrest, a Pennsylvania coal magnate. Forrest acquired Freedom only weeks before the spill that cut off water to 300,000 people and shut down businesses in nine counties. Talk about buyers remorse!

Not that Forrest has stepped forward to deal with the mess. Connecting the dots took some detective work. Freedoms Chapter 11 documents identify its sole owner as Chemstream Holdings. The Pennsylvania company is headquartered in Kittanning, near Pittsburgh, at the same street address as Cliffords Rosebud Mining. Rosebud claims to be the third-largest coal producer in Pennsylvania and the 21st-largest in the U.S. Freedoms filings also show that entities called VF Funding and Mountaineer Funding are seeking to lend as much as $5 million to keep Freedom Industries operating during its reorganization. Mountaineer Funding was incorporated just this past Friday in West Virginia; its sole member is Forrest. In other words, hes seeking bankruptcy-court permission to lend millions to his besieged new acquisition.

Separate West Virginia corporate filings identify Forrest as the manager of two other companies that were merged into Freedom Industries as of Dec. 31, 2013. The corporate rearrangement might have seemed smart on New Years Eve; today, not so much. Lawyers for Forrest and for Freedom Industries didnt respond to my phone calls and e-mail seeking comment.

Freedom has a strategy for spreading the blame. The companys bankruptcy attorneys, led by Mark Freedlander of the Pittsburgh office of McGuire Woods, used Chapter 11 to float a theory designed to ease Freedoms liability: It is presently hypothesized that a local water line break [caused] the ground beneath a storage tank at the Charleston facility to freeze in the extraordinary frigid temperatures in the days immediately preceding what Freedlander delicately termed the incident. Freedom further hypothesized that the hole in the affected storage tank was caused by an object piercing upwards through the base of the tank.

It seems the idea is that water turning to ice expanded, pushing that mystery object through the floor of the tank. Hard to say if the court will buy that. Shouldnt steel tanks containing dangerous chemicals be able to withstand the consequences of winter weather?

Whose allegedly troublesome water line is Freedom talking about? Apparently, the suggestion is that the burst pipe might have been the responsibility of Freedoms co-defendant in many of the liability lawsuits: the local water utility. Business and home owners are blaming the West Virginia unit of American Water Works for failing to move swiftly enough to shut down its intake, which is a mere mile and a half down the Elk River from Freedoms plant. If the utility were also implicated in puncturing the chemical storage tank in the first place that might shift a lot of the legal hassle to American Water (AWK), the nations largest publicly traded water company.

The president of American Waters West Virginia unit has said his company did everything possible to minimize harm from the spill. Something tells me Freedoms lawyers are going to argue otherwise.

Freedom doesnt have much money on hand. American Water had revenue of $6.6 billion in 2012. The companies that now comprise Freedom Industries collectively had revenue of $25.7 million that year, according to the Chapter 11 filing. In 2013, Freedoms sales increased, but only to $30.7 million. Freedom told the bankruptcy court that it has assets of worth from $1 million to $10 million. The filings show that Freedoms top 20 unsecured creditorsapart from lawsuit plaintiffs, of courseare owed a total of $3.6 million.

Among the creditors is Eastman Chemical (EMN), the Kingsport (Tenn.)-based manufacturer that sold Freedom MCHM, the chemical that escaped into the Elk and from there into the regional water system. Eastman has much bigger concerns, however, than recovering the $127,474.84 Freedom owes it. Plaintiffs in liability suits have also named Eastman as a defendant, alleging that the company failed to warn adequately of MCHMs hazards. Eastmans spokeswoman has called the allegations meritless. She went out of her way, though, to add that the manufacturer couldnt vouch for the conduct of American Water or Freedom Industries.

Visit link:
Freedom Industries Chapter 11 Filing Reveals Owners' Strategy

What should we do about freedom camping?

Freedom campers flocking to New Zealand shores have been causing headaches at popular tourist spots.

In the south, tensions have boiled over into verbal conflict at Akaroa's boat ramp. Up to 20 campervans have been parking up by the ramp, clogging up the car park and creating chaos when boaties want to launch early in the morning.

In nearby Duvauchelle, freedom campers had been parking outside the campground - and using their facilities, Akaroa-Wairewa Community Board chairwoman Pam Richardson said.

On the West Coast, the Grey District Council's freedom camping officer has been slapping fines on up to 10 freedom campers a night, most in Cobden.

Richardson said there had been "an explosion" of freedom campers flocking to Banks Peninsula this summer, also affecting French Farm, Wainui and Catons Bay near Little River. The tensions between boaties and freedom campers at the Akaroa boat ramp had so far played out verbally, but there was concern it could turn physical, Richardson said.

There were responsible campers, such as those in the New Zealand Motor Caravan Association, but many others were not.

Human faeces had been discovered in flax bushes near the Duvauchelle Hotel, she said.

Akaroa Jet owner/operator Brett Fea said he was not bothered by the freedom campers, although on one occasion he was unable to park his trailer in the boat ramp car park because of them.

"There are 15 campervans any night of the week. All sitting outside, having breakfast, cooking, pots and pans everywhere."

More here:
Freedom camping row

In this Jan. 13, 2014, photo, workers inspect an area outside a retaining wall around storage tanks where a chemical leaked into the Elk River at Freedom Industries storage facility in Charleston, W.Va. The chemical spill that contaminated water for hundreds of thousands of West Virginians is just the latest and most high-profile case of coal polluting the nation's waters. An Associated Press analysis of federal environmental data found chemicals and waste from the coal industry have tainted hundreds of waterways and groundwater supplies for decades, spoiling private wells, shutting down fishing and rendering streams virtually lifeless.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Government officials will likely be able to ensure that Freedom Industries continues to fund cleanup efforts along the Elk River, but now that the company has filed for bankruptcy, it may be more difficult for them to levy any fines or punishment against the company, a bankruptcy expert said Sunday.

A bankruptcy filing puts a temporary hold, or stay, on all claims for a company to pay its debts.

But there is an exception in bankruptcy code so that government agencies can exercise "police powers," which would likely include environmental cleanup.

"The automatic stay does not stop agencies such as the EPA from enforcing cleanup orders," said Bob Simons, a prominent bankruptcy lawyer with the Pittsburgh firm Reed Smith. "Police powers to protect the health and safety of the public are not stayed by the bankruptcy."

But those police powers would likely not apply to any punishment that the agencies might levy.

"If there were a pecuniary claim, like a fine, arguably the fine is like a debt," Simons, who stressed he was not familiar with Freedom's specific filing, said. "That fine may be treated in the bankruptcy case as any other debt would be."

Shortly after Freedom filed for bankruptcy on Friday, state and federal environmental agencies released statements saying they expected the company to continue its environmental cleanup along the Elk River, where the company's spill of a coal-processing chemical left hundreds of thousands of West Virginia without usable water for days.

"Freedom Industries continues to perform cleanup activities at its tank facility and has indicated that the company intends to continue the cleanup, despite having filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy," the federal Environmental Protection Agency wrote on Saturday. "If circumstances change, EPA will work with West Virginia officials on the most appropriate path forward."

On Friday evening, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection released a statement in all capital letters that said, "A company's bankruptcy status does not absolve it of its environmental remediation obligations."

Go here to see the original:
Freedom bankruptcy unlikely to delay cleanup

In the archivist world, they call them the stacks, the seemingly endless rows of boxes and folders that contain the details of history.

At the Wisconsin Historical Society, a portion of these stacks contains much more than the minutiae of an era. A massive civil rights collection holds items from of a powerful time in American history evidence of hope and hatred, examples of breathtaking bravery and pure evil.

One is always tempted to ask, What in the world is all this stuff doing in Wisconsin, of all places? said Mimi Feingold Real, a UW-Madison history graduate student in 1965-66. And why not Wisconsin?

For the next several months, the Historical Society will highlight the portions of its collection that pertain to the civil rights movement and the Freedom Summer Project, the 1964 nonviolent movement to integrate voting in Mississippi. The documents are part of more than a thousand boxes of material relating to the civil rights movement. For the Freedom Summer project, more than 30,000 documents have been digitized and are available to anyone with the click of a computer mouse.

That the documents are in Wisconsin at all is due to the work of students like Real, who headed into the heart of the South to collect them at a time when tension was high and danger ever present.

In a movement that had Freedom Riders, Freedom Summer and Freedom Schools, they were the Freedom Archivists. Their work resulted in a unique grassroots collection that has been a valuable resource for scholars.

There is no serious civil rights book written in the last 50 years whose author didnt come handle these papers, said Michael Edmonds, deputy director of the Library-Archives Division of the Historical Society and the organizer of the Freedom Summer project.

The often personal nature of the documents gives the collection its power, Edmonds said. There are letters from volunteers to friends and family, as well as hate mail. There are phone logs that give a play-by-play of history as it happened, including a chilling entry from June 21, 1964, of a call that came into a toll-free line set up for workers in the field:

Mickey Schwerner, driving w Andy Goodman (NYC) & Jas. Chaney (Negro/Meridian) left Meridian this am 9-10 heading for Philadelphia in Neshoba Co to investigate church burning. Expected back 4:00. Havent been heard from since.

The civil rights workers had been picked up by police, released but then followed and stopped by the Ku Klux Klan. Two days later, their car was found burned. Six weeks later, their bodies were found buried under a dam near Philadelphia, Miss.

Original post:
Freedom Summer anniversary puts spotlight on Historical Society collection

The Winter Classic at Michigan Stadium on New Year's Day attracted an amazing 105,491 fans.

The Freedom and Liberty ice hockey teams know they won't draw that kind of crowd, but they expect a good one when they meet at 7:15 p.m. on Feb. 5 in what they hope will be the first of many Bethlehem Winter Classics.

The setting will be the Bethlehem Municipal Ice Rink on Illicks Mill Road. There will be a $2 admission charge with all proceeds going to Dream Come True of the Lehigh Valley.

The game will not count in the Lehigh Valley Scholastic Hockey League standings, but still should be a hotly contested game in the cold outdoor setting.

"It's a great idea and there's a lot of people pulling together to make this happen," Freedom coach Brandon Zittrer said. "The Winter Classic in the NHL attracts so much attention and as a community event, this has the potential to be a huge thing and something that can grow into an annual event."

Zittrer said that many local sponsors have come on board, including his own Soldiers Construction and Landscaping company.

"The bottom line is that it's great for the kids because they get to play hockey, which is what they love to do," Zittrer said. "Here they get to play it at different level than normal. It's an outdoor rink and the ice is better there than at most indoor rinks in the area. All the glitz and glamour is great, but ultimately, this is about the kids and we want them to have a good time with it."

Zittrer, a 2005 Freedom graduate who played ice hockey during his high school days, is hoping that the game is not only a showcase for the two teams, but also for the sport in general. In the Lehigh Valley, scholastic ice hockey is a club sport not sponsored by the school districts.

"Typically, ice hockey players start at a very young age and their skills are developed and they are at a point now where many of the kids are looking to go and play college hockey," Zittrer said. "We have great kids and this is definitely a fast-paced sport that's fun to watch."

The players and their parents are doing what they can to spread the word about the game, which came together in a hurry. There should be plenty of standing room available around the glass for fans.

Go here to read the rest:
Freedom and Liberty ice hockey to stage their own Winter Classic on Feb. 5

In moving forward, Malaysia has to assent that freedom of press is no longer an option but a necessity.

COMMENT

A free press, the freedom of which is limited and under wraps, is the very first element that could bring more democracy in a country but only if the press is freed from muzzling and self-censorship.

In the drive for press freedom, the opposition has to play a bigger role in pressing Najib Tun Razaks government to keep up to its promises on guaranteeing such freedoms.

It is obvious that the government will not offer more freedom to the local print press; keeping a firm hold on the newspapers, which is vital to prevent the opposition to take over Putrajaya.

The opposition leaders must however keep up with their promises, made umpteen times, to put foreign officials in the loop on issues of press freedom and must campaign radically in favour of press freedom.

However, the situation is getting worse for the local media.

In recent months, there has been a valse (French term for waltz) of staff movements in the local media scene, with large groups of journalists and support teams leaving the likes of the Malaysian Insider and even the NST, for greener pastures.

Yet with the suspension indefinite and most probably for good of The Heat, the print media world has turned jittery. We should expect a towing to the official line in the printed articles that we are going to read in this despairing year 2014 for the media.

Nevertheless, not all is lost for the fight for a free press, since the 2015 deadline for the formation of the Asean Economic Community (AEC) could augur well for the media world.

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Press freedom essential to survive