Miss Piggy's Grocery Store Checkout Headlines

[Cail]

CHICAGO (AP) — A nuclear reactor at a northern Illinois plant shut down Monday after losing power, and steam was being vented to reduce pressure, according to officials from Exelon Nuclear and federal regulators.

Unit 2 at Byron Generating Station, about 95 miles northwest of Chicago, shut down at 10:18 a.m., after losing power, Exelon officials said. Diesel generators began supplying power to the plant, and operators began releasing steam to cool the reactor from the part of the plant where turbines are producing electricity, not from within the nuclear reactor itself, officials said.

The steam contains low levels of tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, but federal and plant officials insisted the levels were safe for workers and the public.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission declared the incident an "unusual event," the lowest of four levels of emergency. Commission officials also said the release of tritium was expected.

Exelon Nuclear officials believe a failed piece of equipment at a switchyard caused the shutdown but were still investigating an exact cause. The switchyard is similar to a large substation that delivers power to the plant from the electrical grid and from the plant to the electrical grid. Smoke was seen from an onsite station transformer, Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokeswoman Viktoria Mitlyng said, but no evidence of a fire was found when the plant's fire brigade responded.

Mitlyng said officials can't yet calculate how much tritium is being released. They know the amounts are small because monitors around the plant aren't showing increased levels of radiation, she said.

Tritium molecules are so microscopic that small amounts are able to pass from radioactive steam that originates in the reactor through tubing and into the water used to cool turbines and other equipment outside the reactor, Mitlyng said. The steam that was being released was coming from the turbine side.

Tritium is relatively short-lived and penetrates the body weakly through the air compared to other radioactive contaminants.

Releasing steam helps "take away some of that energy still being produced by nuclear reaction but that doesn't have anywhere to go now." Even though the turbine is not turning to produce electricity, she said, "you still need to cool the equipment."

Candace Humphrey, Ogle County's emergency management coordinator, said county officials were notified of the incident as soon as it happened and that public safety was never in danger.

"It was standard procedure that they would notify county officials," she said. "There is always concern. But, it never crossed my mind that there was any danger to the people of Ogle County."

Unit 1 was operating normally while engineers investigate why Unit 2 lost power, which comes into the plant from the outside power grid, Mitlyng said. She said Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspectors were in the control room at Byron and in constant contact with the agency's incident response center in Lisle, Ill.

In March 2008, federal officials said they were investigating a problem with electrical transformers at the plant after outside power to a unit was interrupted.

In an unrelated issue last April, the commission said it was conducting special inspections of backup water pumps at the Byron and Braidwood generating stations after the agency's inspectors raised concerns about whether the pumps would be able to cool the reactors if the normal system wasn't working. The plants' operator, Exelon Corp., initially said the pumps would work but later concluded they wouldn't.

doesnt seem to be major, but thought it might be worth posting.

[Arvin]

i live in sorta norf chicago (ravenswood) am i gonna die???

[Kerberoz]

low levels of tritium

Oh shit, that sounds scary!

...nvm.

[hey]

Oh shit, that sounds scary!

Spoiler: show

...nvm.

lol. Move to wop thread.

[Waraji]

http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/up...aliens-guy.jpg

[Kryssan]

Not worth the time it took to read it.

[Clash Perez]

The only people who worry about this kind of shit are the ones who have no idea what it actually means.

[Heavencloud]

buy stock in iodine companies! DISASTER IMMINENT!

[Shadowscythe]

Nice to see something non-routine handled properly instead of a total cockup.

[hey]

Nice to see something non-routine handled properly instead of a total cockup.

That isn't really unusual. The only thing unusual is it being posted as news.

[Cyn]

I'm kinda late on this, but I may blow your mind by telling you there's an indoor, sit-down, cookout off 64 in Asheboro that I pass going from Charlotte to Cary. I heard from a friend that there is also one in Asheville. I don't know what is so special about the "Ashe" cities that lets them have sit-down cookouts Granted, I haven't been to cookout since high school <.<

Though I would never eat fast food in Asheville. I swear I spend $100+ eating out every time I go up there for the weekend, the food up there is just so good.

[Kerberoz]

12-inch sand fleas found:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46243225...1#.Tyszolx2Rm0

[Xno Kappa]

Don't they say we know more about the moon than we do about the deep sea? There always seems to be a story popping up about some new crazy ass shit found in deep sea lol.

[Eaglestrike]

http://www.wral.com/news/news_briefs/story/10686510/

HOPE MILLS, N.C. — Authorities had to use a stun gun Friday on a woman who cut the drive-thru line at a Cumberland County McDonald's and became argumentative when employees wouldn't take her order.

McDonald's workers told deputies that the woman bypassed the order screen and the first drive-thru window, where customers pay for their orders, and went straight to the pick-up window at the restaurant, at Legion Road and Black and Decker Road in Hope Mills.

The woman had a 3-year-old child in the car with her and asked if she could order and pay at the pick-up window, authorities said. When McDonald's employees told her that they didn't have a register at that window and she needed to go to the back of the line, she refused.

The woman blocked the line for 20 minutes, refusing to move, before workers called Cumberland County deputies.

Debbie Tanna, a spokeswoman for the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office, said the woman became belligerent when deputies arrived, and they had to use to Taser on her to subdue her and take her into custody.

Evangelina Merrerro-Luka, 37, was charged with second-degree trespass in the case.

Social workers took the 3-year-old into protective custody.

Just another crazy person.

[Omniyoji]

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/fron.../04/2003524636

Gamers ignore corpse in Internet cafe




A 23-year-old man died in an Internet cafe in New Taipei City (新北市) after 10 straight hours of gaming on Tuesday and police said yesterday they were shocked to find complete disinterest from the other gamers in the cafe during their investigation.

According to police, Chen Jung-yu (陳榮宥), who worked at Northern Taoyuan Cable TV as an engineer, had paid for 23 hours at a New Taipei City Internet cafe at 10pm on Tuesday to play World of Warcraft, but died 10 hours later.

The clerk at the Internet cafe said Chen was a frequent customer at the cafe, and had taken the corner seat in the first row after coming into the cafe on Tuesday night, adding that at about 3pm on Wednesday, Chen’s head drooped slightly and his hands were stretched in front of him, touching the keyboard.

“I thought that he was only dozing off and paid no particular attention,” the clerk said, adding that when he went to wake Chen up when his 23 hours were up, he saw that his face was blackened and that he was sitting rigidly in the sofa chair.

Seeing Chen’s hands rigidly stretched out in front of him as if he were still gaming when he moved the sofa chair back, the clerk said he called police.

About 10 other players were in the cafe, but said they only knew something had happened after the police started cordoning off the area for forensic sweeps, but to the police officers’ surprise, most either stayed in front of their computers and kept on gaming or took little interest.

A slip for an appointment at National Taiwan University Hospital was found in Chen’s scooter storage space, and the preliminary cause of death is suspected to be organ failure after he stayed up through the night gaming, police said.

The police have asked coroners to perform an autopsy to clarify the cause of death, and they asked Chen’s father to identify the body yesterday.

An initial police investigation found that he might have died of a cardiac arrest triggered by low temperatures.

On the issue of other players in the cafe not paying any attention to someone’s death, National Tsing Hua University Institute of Sociology professor Wang Chin-shou (王俊秀) yesterday said that once people were addicted to games and the Internet, it is easy for them to over-indulge and blur the lines between the virtual and the real world.

Long-time immersion in virtual worlds of killing and violence can cause players to become desensitized to their actual surroundings, Wang said.

Addressing the effect of Internet cafes on health, Paochien Hospital cardiologist Hsieh Pu-lin (謝普霖) said sitting in a cigarette-smoke-filled Internet Cafe can lead to acute vascular obstruction and an irregular heart beat, adding that cramped quarters in Internet cafes were detrimental to circulation, which could lead to minor thrombophlebitis.

If one suddenly stood up in such a situation, a blood clot could rise to the lungs and obstruct breathing, and even in severe instances cause sudden death, he said.

Fucking police investigation, I gotta get dem items...

[Howie Roary]

rez pls

[Anoat]

Mo. teen found guilty of murdering 9 year old neighbor blah blah etc, highlight of the story is her diary entries: http://news.yahoo.com/mo-teen-gets-l...141938731.html

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A central Missouri teenager who confessed to strangling, cutting and stabbing a 9-year-old girl because she wanted to know how it felt to kill someone was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Alyssa Bustamante, 18, pleaded guilty in January to second-degree murder and armed criminal action in the October 2009 slaying of Elizabeth Olten in St. Martins, a small rural town west of Jefferson City.

The judge also ordered the teen to serve a consecutive 30-year term in the armed criminal action charge.

Bustamante was 15 years old when she confessed to strangling Elizabeth, repeatedly stabbing her in the chest and slicing the girl's throat. She led police to the shallow grave where she had concealed Elizabeth's body under a blanket of leaves in the woods behind their neighborhood.

With her hands shackled to her waist and her feet shackled together, Bustamante rose and faced Elizabeth's mother and siblings before she was sentenced Wednesday.

"I know words," she said, pausing to take a deep breath and struggling to compose herself, "can never be enough and they can never adequately describe how horribly I feel for all of this."

She added: "If I could give my life to get her back I would. I'm sorry."

Elizabeth's mother, Patty Preiss, who on the first day of Bustamante's sentencing hearing called her "an evil monster" and declared that she "hated her" sat silently, staring forward during Bustamante's apology.

The Olten family declined to comment to reporters, as did Bustamante's family.

Bustamante had been charged with first-degree murder and by pleading guilty to the lesser charges she avoided a trial and the possibility of spending her life in an adult prison with no chance of release.

The teenager's defense attorneys had argued for a sentence less than life in prison, saying Bustamante's use of the antidepressant Prozac had made her more prone to violence. They said she had suffered from depression for years and once attempted suicide by overdosing on painkillers.

But prosecutors sought a longer sentence. They noted that Bustamante had dug two graves several days in advance, and that on the evening of the killing had sent her younger sister to lure Elizabeth outside with an invitation to play. Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. David Rice testified that the teenager told him "she wanted to know what it felt like" to kill someone. Prosecutors also cited journal entries in which Bustamante described the exhilaration of killing Elizabeth.

"I strangled them and slit their throat and stabbed them now they're dead," Bustamante wrote in her diary, which was read in court by a handwriting expert. "I don't know how to feel atm. It was ahmazing. As soon as you get over the 'ohmygawd I can't do this' feeling, it's pretty enjoyable. I'm kinda nervous and shaky though right now. Kay, I gotta go to church now...lol."

Bustamante then headed off to a youth dance at her church while a massive search began for the missing girl.

[Kerberoz]

"I strangled them and slit their throat and stabbed them now they're dead," Bustamante wrote in her diary, which was read in court by a handwriting expert. "I don't know how to feel atm. It was ahmazing. As soon as you get over the 'ohmygawd I can't do this' feeling, it's pretty enjoyable. I'm kinda nervous and shaky though right now. Kay, I gotta go to church now...lol."

[Howie Roary]

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3404/3...327bd281be.jpg

[ChairmanMeow]

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3404/3...327bd281be.jpg

Beat me to it.