RoguePundit

Liquidating Gottschalks

Some more people in Grants Pass and elsewhere will soon lose their jobs.

James Famalette, chairman and CEO of the bankrupt Fresno-based department store chain, said today that going-out-of-business sales will begin Thursday or Friday at the company's outlets across the western U.S.

"Obviously this is a very sad day at the office," Famalette wrote in an e-mail from Delaware, where the bankruptcy auction was held Monday and where a judge will approve the winning bid Wednesday morning in a court hearing.

Gottschalks, founded in 1904, operates 58 department stores and three specialty stores in California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Idaho and Nevada, and employs about 4,000 people throughout the company, Famalette said.

Liquidation sales--to be conducted by the same four companies that ran the closing sales for bankrupt retailers Mervyns and Circuit City--are expected to take between 45 and 90 days, Famalette said.

Most of the employees who work in stores "should be fine unti the end of the sale," Famalette said.

Retail is yet another bubble that's painfully deflating.

PETA is Murder

As I've noted before, PETA believes that it's better to kill pets than to have them owned by people.  PETA kills a lot of animals.  I'm sure to its chagrin, PETA has to document its mass murder and provide that information to the state of Virginia--where it's headquartered--each year.  The following summarizes the ugly toll from 1998 through 2008.    

According to public records from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, PETA killed 2,124 pets last year and placed only seven in adoptive homes. Since 1998, a total of 21,339 dogs and cats have died at the hands of PETA workers.

Plus last year, there were 243 "other companion animals" that were euthanized.  

Despite having a $32 million budget, PETA does not operate an adoption shelter. PETA employees make no discernible effort to find homes for the thousands of pets they kill every year. Last year, the Center for Consumer Freedom petitioned Virginia’s State Veterinarian to reclassify PETA as a slaughterhouse.

CCF Research Director David Martosko said: “PETA hasn’t slowed down its hypocritical killing machine one bit, but it keeps browbeating the rest of society with a phony ‘animal rights’ message. What about the rights of the thousands of dogs, cats, puppies, and kittens that die in PETA’s headquarters building?”

As we know from the trial I blogged about at the first link, animals were being picked up by PETA employees at local humane societies and killed in the vehicle before it even left the parking lot.  The corpses are ordinarily stored in a big freezer in the PETA headquarters and periodically cremated by bulk contract.  Ironically, it's PETA's Vice President of Cruelty Investigations--Daphna Nachminovitch--who oversees the slaughter.  Yet in a press release yesterday...

After thousands of votes were tallied, Rusty beat out nine other finalists to be crowned the winner of PETA's first-ever Cutest Mutt Alive contest. Rusty, whose guardian is 35-year-old Wheeling resident Debbie Lamlech, edged out nearly 1,000 other lovable mutts to become a finalist. PETA created the contest to show that all dogs are created equal--and that the kindest thing a person can do for a dog is to adopt a mutt from an animal shelter. (And, as the first family is about to prove, even purebreds can be adopted from animal shelters and breed rescue organizations.)

...

"Rusty proves that adopting a mutt can fill your life with a joy and love that words can't express," says PETA Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. "All rescued mutts are winners in PETA's book because they were saved by people who love them for who they are."

Murderous hypocrite.

Weight Gain and Aging

Have you ever noticed how when some middle-aged folks lose weight, it can make their faces look older?    

A new study has found that people [women] aged over 40 look younger when their faces are fatter.

The study, published on the Plastic and reconstructive surgery website compared 186 pairs of identical twins and found that dropping one dress size could age a woman by an average of four years.

...

Rajiv Grover, secretary of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, told the Daily Mail: "It's not wrinkles and lines that make people look older, it's changes in the shape of the face.

"People have this thing about being thin. It perhaps gives them a slimmer body but they certainly age in the face more quickly."

How convenient that so many people don't control their weight very well. 

During the study the body mass index (BMI) of each twin was calculated by dividing their weight by their height. ...

 "'The twins were divided into groups based on a four-point BMI difference," Researcher Dr Bahaman Guyuron told the Daily Mail.

"A BMI higher by four points was found to result in a younger appearance of between two and four years in women over 40 years old."

But don’t step off that treadmill just yet – if you are under 40 gaining weight will make you look older.

That's a peculiar transition...going from looking older than one's years to looking younger.  Other things that caused women to look older included depression, divorce, drinking, smoking, and sunbathing.  No mention of what else helped them look younger. 

Marketing E-Cigarettes

Smoking Everywhere is a Florida company in the e-cigarette business (previous blog here).  It's showing some peculiar taste when it comes to choosing a spokesman.

Lindsay Lohan's dad has been hired on as a spokesman for a new type of cigarette billed by its makers as a "healthier option" to traditional smokes, the cigarette company said, but local health experts are worried about the idea of any product that encourages the use of nicotine.

The tobacco-free product, called electronic cigarettes, are usually made of stainless steel and have a chamber that holds liquid nicotine. A battery runs the so-called e-cigarette, which produces a warm mist rather than smoke.

Michael Lohan is famous mostly for being infamous.

In the late 1980s, he was sentenced to four years in prison in a stock fraud case. He returned to jail in 1998 after violating his probation by leaving the state to visit Lindsay on a California movie set. He received another 27 days in 2000 after violating an order of protection obtained by Dina to prevent him from seeing their children.

Two years ago, he was sentenced to 1 1/3 to 4 years in prison for drunken driving, brawling with his brother-in-law at a first communion party, and other charges. He was released in March 2007 and entered a Christian-based drug and rehabilitation center in West Babylon.

...

Lohan directed a 2005 autobiographical music video, “Confessions of a Broken Heart (Daughter to Father),” depicting a husband resembling Michael verbally abusing a blonde-haired beauty who could easily be mistaken for Dina. A child in a tutu (Lindsay’s younger sister, Ali?) quakes in fear in an adjacent bedroom.

Lindsay smokes like a chimney. 

Carving Accident

Wood carving with a chain saw looks dramatic because there's some danger involved.  However, one doesn't often hear about the following. 

Glenn Walter Dobrusky, 58, was found dead at his home Tuesday afternoon.

[Sheriff's Capt.] Rector said an autopsy was performed Thursday and the result was consistent with an investigative finding that Dobrusky’s death was accidental.

"Analysis of the scene indicated that Mr. Dobrusky was working in his shop, using a chain saw on a wooden sculpture, when the chain saw blade somehow made contact with the throat area of his neck, causing a fatal wound," Rector said. "It appears that the accident occurred sometime early in the morning on March 24."

Dobrusky. a longtime Curry County resident, was a featured artist at the Brookings Festival of the Arts last year.

Sad.  Here are a couple of websites that showsome of Dobrusky's work.

Random Nature #208

Breaking Protective Barriers:  We don't tend to think of bacteria exhibiting behavior, but in a sense nearly all of them do, as the following explains.

Single-celled organisms generally exhibit two distinct modes of behavior. The first is the familiar free floating, or planktonic, form in which single cells float or swim independently in some liquid medium. The second is an attached state in which cells are closely packed and firmly attached to each other and usually form a solid surface. A change in behavior is triggered by many factors, including quorum sensing, as well as other mechanisms that vary between species. When a cell switches modes, it undergoes a phenotypic shift in behavior in which large suites of genes are up- and down-regulated.

Examples of microorganisms exhibiting that second state include the plaque on our teeth and the coating that develops on contact lenses.  Nowadays, the proper term is biofilm. 

Many types of bacteria, such as MRSA, exist in colonies that adhere to the surfaces of materials. The colonies often form coatings, known as biofilms, which protect them from antiseptics, disinfectants, and antibiotics.

Time out for some more definitions.

Antiseptics are antimicrobial substances that are applied to living tissue/skin to reduce the possibility of infection, sepsis, or putrefaction.  They should generally be distinguished from antibiotics that destroy bacteria within the body, and from disinfectants, which destroy microorganisms found on non-living objects. Some antiseptics are true germicides, capable of destroying microbes (bacteriocidal), whilst others are bacteriostatic and only prevent or inhibit their growth.

Salts in liquid form are showing some promise when it comes to killing bacteria which have protected themselves with biofilms.  Returning to the second link...

Earle said: "We have shown that when pitted against the ionic liquids we developed and tested, biofilms offer little or no protection to MRSA, or to seven other infectious microorganisms."

Ionic liquids, just like the table salt sprinkled on food, are salts. They consist entirely of ions - electrically-charged atoms or groups of atoms. Unlike table salt, however, which has to be heated to over 800 C [1472 F] to become a liquid, the ionic liquid antibiofilm agents remain liquid at the ambient temperatures found in hospitals.

One of the attractions of ionic liquids is the opportunity to tailor their physical, chemical, and biological properties by building specific features into the chemical structures of the positively-charged ions (the cations), and/or the negatively-charged ions (the anions).

Earle said: "Our goal is to design ionic liquids with the lowest possible toxicity to humans while wiping out colonies of bacteria that cause hospital acquired infections."

Salting kills slugs via a different mechanism. 

Getting Stronger:  Dilution isn't always the solution.  

Biocides are used in disinfectants and antiseptics to kill microbes. They are commonly used in cleaning hospitals and home environments, sterilizing medical equipment and decontaminating skin before surgery. At the correct strength, biocides kill bacteria and other microbes. However, if lower levels are used the bacteria can survive and become resistant to treatment.

That's one of the alarming things about various antibiotics, biocides, etc. being found in low levels in the environment. 

"Bacteria like Staphylococcus aureus make proteins that pump many different toxic chemicals out of the cell to interfere with their antibacterial effects," said Dr Glenn Kaatz from the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Detroit, USA. "These efflux pumps can remove antibiotics from the cell and have been shown to make bacteria resistant to those drugs. We wanted to find out if exposure to biocides could also make bacteria resistant to being killed by the action of efflux pumps."

The researchers exposed S. aureus taken from the blood of patients to low concentrations of several biocides and dyes, which are also used frequently in hospitals. They looked at the effect of exposure on the bacteria and found that mutants that make more efflux pumps than normal were produced.

"We found that exposure to low concentrations of a variety of biocides and dyes resulted in the appearance of resistant mutants," said Dr Kaatz. "The number of efflux pumps in the bacteria increased. Because the efflux pumps can also rid the cell of some antibiotics, pathogenic bacteria with more pumps are a threat to patients as they could be more resistant to treatment."

Note the MRSA stands for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. 

Canned Heat:  People who are desperate for alcohol will drink some weird stuff.

The term "non-beverage alcohols" refers to manufactured liquids that contain alcohol but are not intended for consumption, such as medicinal tinctures, aftershave, alcohol-based anti-freeze, antiseptics, and eau-de-colognes. Drinking these products is very hazardous to one's health.

According to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), the alcohol consumption per capita in Russia is almost 4 gallons a year.  In the U.S., it's 2.2 gallons per year.  Switching links...

The Government’s strict licensing system, introduced under pressure from President Putin, prompted concern that poorer people were risking their lives by drinking cleaning fluids as vodka prices rose to pay for the new licences.

Recent research indicates that 7 percent of working-age Russian men living in the Ural Mountains drank non-beverage alcohol within the previous year.  Returning to the earlier link... 

Leon and his colleagues surveyed 17 cities--representative of a wide range of city types--in the Russian Federation, excluding the Far East, during the first half of 2007. Fieldworkers visited pharmacies and other types of retail outlets in order to purchases samples of various kinds of non-beverage alcohols. Guidelines for purchases included 10 - 15 roubles per bottle, with an alcohol concentration of at least 60 percent by volume.

"We found that non-beverage alcohols were widely available throughout the 17 Russian cities we surveyed," said Leon. "This empirically provides a very important basis for arguing that further tighter regulation of these substances is necessary. On the positive side, and somewhat contrary to our expectations, it appears that the 2006 federal regulations have resulted in a decline in the availability of eau-de-colognes, but not medicinal tinctures." Medicinal tinctures, sold almost exclusively in pharmacies, were particularly common – with an average concentration of 78 percent alcohol by volume.

"These concentrations are very high compared to spirits," noted Leon, "and are often prominently displayed on labels and packaging as they attract people to buy them, knowing that they will get a lot of alcohol for the cheap price they pay. However, it should be noted that it is not known what proportion of people drink these substances straight from the bottle. An appreciable proportion probably dilute the products with water and hence have a large volume to drink, much like buying concentrated fruit juice that needs dilution to drink."

Methanol is added to sterno to denature it--to make it undrinkable.  In sufficient quantity, methanol is toxic...it can blind and/or kill.

More Skullduggery by the OEA

The Oregon legislature is currently considering a couple of laws that would limit schooling options.   

Senate Bill 767 requires that 50 percent of students enrolled in the virtual charter schools live in the host district.

Its sister legislation, SB 881, would limit the state funds online charter schools receive for enrolled students who live outside the district.

If both bills pass, they would effectively close online charter schools in Oregon, virtual school supporters say.

Lawmakers said they don't oppose online education but they're concerned the virtual schools are sending state education dollars outside Oregon to pay the companies that operate the Web sites.

The Medford Mail Tribune should be ashamed for printing a lengthy article on this subject that completely avoids the elephant in the room.  Here's why the Oregon Educations Association (OEA) was recently the Willamette Week's Rogue of the Week.  

On March 10, Obama laid out his vision for education. He promoted teacher merit pay and greater charter school access, saying, “I call on states to reform their charter rules.”

However in Salem, the OEA, a powerful union representing 47,000 teachers, is doing its best to kill Oregon’s largest online charter school, Scio-based Oregon Connections Academy. Founded in September 2005, OCA now serves about 2,650 K-12 students.

Since 2005, OCA has battled the Oregon Department of Education over a law that says at least 50 percent of students in a virtual charter school must live in its sponsoring district. Only a small percentage of OCA’s kids live in the Linn County district, but school officials believe OCA was grandfathered in before the law took effect in 2005.

On March 5 at OEA’s request, several leading Democrats introduced Senate Bill 767, which would prohibit kids below seventh grade from attending virtual charters, ban a waiver of the 50 percent residence requirement and require permission from a student’s home district to “attend” an out-of-district virtual charter. OEA has never liked charters, which can employ non-union teachers. Online charters also require fewer teachers than conventional schools and cost districts money when students leave neighborhood schools.

Switching links again, to one which refers to the Oregon Connections Academy as ORCA...

In a Feb. 16 letter to the State Board of Education, 20 lawmakers came to ORCA's defense, not only urging the state to grant ORCA the waiver but expressing anger that ORCA even has to ask.

The letter, generated by Keizer Republican Rep. Kim Thatcher's office, says, "During the 2005 legislative session when SB1071 (which established the 50 percent provision) was being debated, the Oregon Department of Education official in charge of virtual schooling assured the Legislature that SB1071 would not affect ORCA. We voted for the bill only because of this assurance, with the good faith understanding that ORCA would never be required to comply with this provision."

It added, "ORCA has grown to be one of the largest public schools in the state, and it is meeting the state's academic standards. But now the [education department's] position has changed. It now says that ORCA must comply with the 50 percent provision starting in 2010. This would mean the death of this innovative public school. ... To deny this waiver request is tantamount to the [education department] announcing that its word cannot be trusted."

It's absurd that ORCA and any schools like it should need a waiver.  If Oregon's leaders are concerned about education dollars leaving the state, they need to push our schools to do a better job of competing for those dollars.  The OEA would rather restrict choice--a conservative urge that Salem should avoid. 

As long as the Democratic leadership in this state is dependent upon the OEA for political and monetary support, our educational system will continue to be a shadow of what it could and should be. 

Made in Oregon, or Else...

For days now, there have been stories on the possibility that the University of Oregon will change the prominent "Made in Oregon" sign in Portland.  I don't have a dog in that fight, but the following prospect concerns me.

The university is renovating the historic White Stag building at 5 N.W. Naito Parkway for a Portland campus and has applied to the city Historic Landmarks Commission to change the words on the sign to "University of Oregon." The university has a lease-purchase option for the sign with the owner, Ramsey Signs of Portland. 

...

It's an admittedly aggressive move, but is a last resort, [Commissioner] Leonard said. City Attorney Linda Meng said the use of eminent domain is warranted if the taking serves a public purpose.

"It's not your ordinary condemnation, but the ordinance does a good job explaining what the public purpose is," she said.

When it comes to using eminent domain, the message on a glorified billboard is a spookily trivial public purpose. 

Changing the sign from a neutral Portland-oriented message "seriously degrades the value of the icon" and "commandeers it for the narrow purpose of institutional self-indulgence," Leonard wrote Monday on his City Hall blog. He also said officials at Portland State University are offended that the Eugene-based school has come to Portland to "stake a claim" to the sign.

Mayor Sam Adams and Commissioner Nick Fish have co-sponsored an ordinance Leonard introduced late Thursday for City Council discussion next week that would, in essence, take the sign. The city would pay fair market value for the sign, estimated at $500,000. Other costs include maintenance and a lease on the rooftop space.

City ownership would ensure control over what has become a "national signature" for the city and state and part of the cultural fabric of Portland, Leonard said. It's visible to Interstate 5 travelers and to millions who watch nationally televised Blazer games and other events.

National signature?  Certainly not for the state, and the landmark that's most consistently associated with Portland is Mt. Hood.  And as the article reminded us, that sign has only said Made in Oregon since 1997.  It used to say White Stag, which is now a sportswear label owned by Wal-Mart.  Portland hates big boxes, with the exception of IKEA.

Meanwhile with the city in serious financial trouble, does it really have the $500,000+ to spend on something like this?  Salem ought to be asking the U of O the same question.

Renewable Energy and Not-So-Easy Credit

Last week, the world's largest wind energy company and owner of Portland's PPM Energy--Iberdrola (previous blog here)--said it wasn't contemplating raising additional capital. 

Iberdrola's "liquidity amounts to EUR9 billion, which covers financial needs for the next two years," [Chairman] Galan said a press conference ahead of the company's annual general meeting.

The country's largest power company by market value plans to invest EUR4.2 billion this year and projects net profit of EUR3.5 billion by 2010.

However this week...

Iberdrola Renewables will cut its British investment by more than 40 per cent, it was reported.

The £300 million withdrawal could have paid for a wind farm capable of powering 200,000 homes.

The news is the latest blow to Gordon Brown's target of generating 35 per cent of Britain's electricity from renewable sources by 2020.

As I've noted before, 35% is a rather ambitious target for a variable energy source like wind.   

Iberdrola Renewables' chief executive, Xabier Viteri, whose Spanish parent owns ScottishPower, blamed the economic crisis for the cutback, The Times reported.

It came a day after Ed Miliband, the Climate Change Minister, angered rural campaigners by saying opposition to wind farms is as socially unacceptable as failing to stop at a zebra crossing.

His comments were made at the screening of a new climate change documentary, The Age Of Stupid, in London.

He said: "The Government needs to be saying, 'It is socially unacceptable to be against wind turbines in your area – like not wearing your seat belt or driving past a zebra crossing'.''

Wow.  Miliband, who's only been in his job since October, has been having a rough time.  Switching links...

Power industry bosses have accused the Energy Minister of failing to understand the market and of ignoring them at a time when the industry is being asked to pour £100 billion into Britain’s ageing infrastructure.

...

The two roundtable meetings were said to be difficult. At the first, Mr Miliband asked all the chief executives when they planned to cut retail prices--a question described by one as “naïve” at such a meeting, given the competitive nature of the business.

At the second meeting, industry chiefs reportedly pressed Mr Miliband on the difficulty they faced financing huge new offshore wind energy and nuclear power station projects against a backdrop of turmoil in global debt markets. They also sought his support in negotiations over a key review of price controls by Ofgem, the regulator, arguing that, unless they were allowed a higher rate of return, they would be unable to make the investments required in the network.

One of those power companies is E.ON UK, with which Miliband has an interesting connection.

His current girlfriend is Justine Thornton, a Cambridge-educated barrister [lawyer] with the law firm 39 Essex Street.  She specialises in environmental, planning and international law. In this work, she is currently working on projects for the German-owned energy company E.ON UK (former Powergen). The company is proposing new power stations (including the controversial coal-fired plant at Kingsnorth in Kent and planned new nuclear) to be built in the UK.

Bet they have some interesting NIMBY discussions.

Speaking of curious relationships, the chairman of the California Air Resources Board--Mary Nichols--is a lawyer and long-time environmental activist who's married to a lawyer that represents Exxon.

One Student, One School

Agness is a remote community located near where the Illinois River joins the Rogue.  That puts it in Curry County, about 30 miles east of Gold Beach.  It's one of two remaining communities in the U.S. that's served by a mail boat. 

The two-room elementary school there is still open, though the classroom isn't very crowded.  

Measure 5 in the early 90s caused Pistol River, Agness and Ophir schools to be absorbed by the Central Curry School System; since then, the Agness School has been funded by CCSD using state grant money awarded in the amount of $133,000 annually for those living that far out of the community within the Agness area.

The money coming in to support Agness is also helping to support a paid teacher's assistant position. The requirements of keeping the school running includes having one person, on average, attending the school. At the moment there is just one child attending as well as a teacher and a teacher assistant.

$133,000 for one student?  Well, that's one of the reasons why the district is rather motivated to keep the school open.  But note that the schools in both Pistol River and Ophir have been closed and sold.

There is a possibility that there may not be any attendees for the coming school year as the one child is purportedly not happy being there. Her siblings are going to school in Gold Beach with the other Agness kids. She may be home schooled. If this is the case, the school system may fall short in funds this much more in the 2009-2010 school year.

The district is currently looking for a way to accommodate the situation and keep its school in Agness.

Principal Tom Denning of Riley Creek stated that they encourage anyone they can to move up there.

And do what?  That's the problem.