News You Can't Use: San Francisco Using Drinking Water To Heat City Hall, Other Buildings

It's been a good week for terrible days. There's lotus-eating human derelict day, Earth Day and the upcoming one week anniversary of the Edmonton Oilers getting the first overall pick. We could celebrate by "responsibly" inhaling plant fumes, remembering the worst environmental alarmism, or in our case tucking into some exciting drought hypocrisy. To give you the full disclosure and transparency, when I read the headline I really wondered how "drinking water" can heat buildings. Do you hold it in your mouth until it gets to 98.6 and then spit it out or something? It turns out that's not right. Don't worry, it's explained in excruciating detail.

The people who want us to use less water are part of a system that could be among the biggest water wasters in San Francisco. That system is in hot water, because of hot water.

The most corrupt and wasteful people might be corrupt and wasteful. The irony. Then the pain of sentence number two. The reflexive property doesn't always create top quality journalistic prose, as hard as that is to believe.

“After the water is heated up, the condensated water is then discharged into the sewer system,” said Tyrone Jue of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. “This is drinking water that is being used for the steam loop.”

It's like the hydrological cycle, but with more outrage and sewers standing in for clouds.

Water is heated to make steam to heat City Hall and 170 other nearby buildings. Although City Hall reuses most of its portion, a quarter million gallons a day goes wasted. Good drinking water ends up in the sewer. It’s a system that is more than 80 years old.

A rambling stream of thought narrative explains what's going down. It heats structures. Some is reused, some not. I could drink that sewer water, if it wasn't in the sewer. It's eight decades in the making.

“This system has been set up in the city for many decades, as far as this steam loop. It doesn’t rely on fossil fuels or natural gas to heat these buildings. So in that sense it’s good,” Jue said.

Or you could just wear a jacket or sweater, so in a sense it's bad.

But times have changed. Water is a much more precious commodity now than in the 1930s when steam heat seemed to be a good idea.

I know, it's hard to believe in today's enlightened age that we were such fools. Those naive maniacs that played with the properties of water with all the care and concern of a five-year-old who finds a loaded gun in a drawer.

“This station has had a problem with water intrusion since it opened in the mid-1970s. And so we’ve been pumping it out and trying to get rid of it since then,” said Taylor Huckaby of BART.

I think I'll put Water Intrusion on the "maybe" list for that metal band name.

Now 65 million gallons of ground water under BART goes into the sewer each year. The idea is to get that water, not good for drinking, into the heating system to replace the good drinking stuff.

When I'm talking about that good drinking stuff it isn't H2O, if you know what I'm saying.

Booze.

The company says there are no firm plans and it will be expensive.

"We've got some vague plans we came up with while lying on the hood of a car and looking at the night sky."

"First I better warm up somehow."

But in this era of drought, priorities are changing and saving good drinking water is now at the top of the list.

We'll do it this weekend. Maybe. If there's time.

Do not visit the ad-riddled source: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/04/23/california-drought-san-francisco-drinking-water-steam-loop-heat-city-hall-buildings/

Komment Korner  

i think i'll take a hour long hot shower.

These pigs use millions of gallons an hour.

The energy code in the municipality where I run my steam plant requires us to have a robust condensate return system

Heat it up with a mid sized nuke or two.

Gov. Moon Beam just up to his old tricks.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Government Waste Includes Swedish Massages for Rabbits, Monkey Gambling Lessons

How would you like to hear about massive government waste involving your tax dollars? I know, the Big Game is on soon and thinking causes physical pain and sexual side-effects, but in this case I promise it will be worth it. We're talking gambling monkeys, rabbits that live in the lap of decadent luxury and some Republican trapped on the wrong side of history trying to get someone, anyone, to actually care about this appalling misappropriation. Yes, this should be the new youth fad. "Hey dawg, let's rap about the appropriation of federal funds. Totally rad! Twenty-three skiddoo!"

More than a dozen lucky rabbits were given Swedish massages four times a day, courtesy of U.S. taxpayers, as part of a study to figure out whether massage can help recovery times after strenuous exercise — a practice Sen. Tom Coburn says makes a mockery of federal spending.

I can see giving tax dollars to "moderate" terrorists or blimp attack defense domes, but I didn't get all those automatic pay check deductions so Bugs Bunny can get endless deep tissue stimulation! Basic research, the oldest con game in the book.

The rabbit massages are one of the hundred wasteful products Mr. Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, identified in his latest edition of the Wastebook, an annual compendium of the ridiculous and outrageous items in government spending, which he is releasing on Wednesday.

On Wastebook you post pictures of yourself achieving nothing of any value, sometimes paired with self-congratulatory text updates. So it's just like that other one.

Every year this guy lists the outrages and nothing ever changes. We need to start caring about PEOPLE, man. Now if you'll excuse me I'm gonna fall off this bar stool, stagger home and beat my family savagely.

Other highlights included the National Science Foundation paying academics to teach monkeys to gamble

"No, Chin Chin! You don't split up two tens!!!

A first-person combat shooting video game the Army developed — but which intelligence officials fear terrorists could use to train their own recruits.

I don't want to alarm you, but the terrorists may have access to video games. Seriously, what is this? I always assumed terrorists trainees (complete with special little name tags) just watch endless episodes of "Jersey Shore," "Teen Mom" and "Real Housewives" until the proper hatred for the American Satan has been instilled.

Indeed, Hezbollah has adapted the game’s design to train suicide martyrs.

"Pretend the dots are innocent people and the ghosts represent enemy soldiers."

Mr. Coburn’s investigators also found scientists putting mountain lions, monkeys, rats and cows on treadmills.

Our national mountain lion obesity problem is deeply troubling. This is the way forward.

In the case of the rabbits, they weren’t put on treadmills but were forced to exercise in order to create stress.

"Get off that treadmill, Thumper! What do you think you are, a cow or something?"

Science!

Taxpayers paid $387,000 for the two-year study, which concluded that other studies were right, and massage seemed to help in recovery — though it wasn’t clear that rabbit physiology could be extrapolated to humans. The rabbits were euthanized at the end of the study, Mr. Coburn’s report says.

It's funny that in the rush to get all scandalized over the sweet life of these jumping vermin we kind of glossed over the whole "euthanized" thing. 

Full Story.

Komment Korner  

The country fell short by roughly 536 impeachment hearings that year.

Who Is John Galt?

Next time Sen. Coburn needs life saving modern medial care, maybe he should decline as it is almost certainly grounded in basic research that, since he has no expertise or ability to put in context, he'd declare was a waste of taxpayers money when it was performed.

You've got to pass what's in the cupboard before you can see what's in the cupboard

Barbara, I think you're falling for a classic Tom Coburn misdirection.

Check Out My Books!

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read free excerpts here and here.

His first novel "The Foolchild Invention" is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Federal Workers Get Handcuffed Over Porn Problem

Federal workers truly are the heroes of our time. Their ability to perform consistently at a level well below the minimal standards of private industry combined with their well-earned sense of superiority and entitlement inspire us all. Forget being an athlete or having a Youtube channel where you play a video game while exhaling into a microphone like Darth Vader's loser younger brother, the new dream is to become one of the federal employees who do work so valuable it can't even be explained or documented. In between bouts of internet voyeurism, that is.

There is now legislation, authored by Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) that would ban employees from looking at porn during work.

The Republican war on women continues. I guess. Come on, use your imagination!

Though it sounds random, it's not.

Actually, it didn't seem that way. What I saw were correctly spelled words formed into mostly coherent sentences. I think we can rule out random mutation, erosion or punctuated equilibrium as explanations. Clearly this is semi-intelligent design.

Earlier this year, a top official at the Environmental Protection Agency was busted for watching porn—lots of porn—on his government-issued computer during work.

A little ironic that someone dedicated to talking down suicidal polar bears and saving the walrus was also so dedicated to self-pollution.

Federal investigators found out that the employee had downloaded at least 7,000 files of pornography and logged between two and six hours of porn watching a day since 2010.

Here's where probably about half the people reading this shrug and say to themselves "Yeah? Sounds like normal behavior to me."

Although this incident was the subject of a heated congressional hearing—the official received little more than a slap on the wrist.

And since said wrist was well toned from repeated "exercise" it hurt even less.

"How much pornography would it take for an EPA employee to lose their job?" House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) asked at the hearing in May.

Better ask Mr. Owl.

Apparently more than 7,000 files—since this EPA official is still on the job and collecting a hefty paycheck, according to Environment and Energy Publishing.

Yes, this venal piece of garbage is receiving tax-payer money to view satanic evil in his make-work job. Just thought you should know.

In fact, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee says the employee, who is a GS-14 staffer earning between $106,000 and $139,000 had also been receiving performance awards during this time period.

If you're halfway through that unpaid internship you might want to stop reading now before your head explodes from concentrated righteous indignation.

Earlier this year, a Federal Communications Commission employee was caught watching up to eight hours of porn each week at work, the Washington Examiner reported. His reason, according to auditors was that "he often does not have enough work to do and has free time."

Well, if you have time to lean you have time to clean. And I'm not referring to cleaning up yourself after viewing electronic erotica.

Though most agencies like the EPA have guidelines against this type of behavior at work, Meadows says they aren't doing a good enough job enforcing them. That's where his bill comes in—he added that his bill would cover other inappropriate uses of time as well.

Apparently "do your job or get fired" has absolutely no meaning in today's world. Thus, we need special laws.

I also bash the bishop while on the clock.

"It's not just casual porn viewing, but hours and hours of unproductive time doing things we shouldn't be condoning."

I mean, I'm okay with some casual viewing of extreme femdom humiliation videos and so on. This isn't a monastery or something. 

There seems to be a need to reinforce agency rules that might be in place, but not enforced," Meadows told The Washington Post.

Naw, let's just add more rules that will be ignored.

Full Story.

Komment Korner  

Taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for their pervertedness. Prosecute these criminals!

Performance bonus?? I don't wanna know.

I'm surprise no one mention - freedom of speech for watching porn

the real porn is watching congress go on vacation while the nation is engaged in war

They might as well just tell the SEC employees to stay home.

Check Out My Books!

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read free excerpts here and here.

His first novel "The Foolchild Invention" is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.