PA Blog

Yesterday on Don Russell’s Beer Radar , he had the basic information on a second raid by the PLCB and Pennsylvania State Troopers. As promised, a fuller account was published today, with additional reporting by Bob Warner, in the Philadelphia Daily News . Here’s the account, entitled In Another Raid, State Police Hit Beer Distributor, Origlio’s, in Far Northeast . The state continues to confiscate Duvel , Monk’s Café Flemish Sour Red Ale and even Hacker-Pschorr , despite all three brands having been registered and sold for many years. Russian River Brewing’ Supplication was also one of the beers confiscated, but in that case Vinnie Cilurzo admitted he’d simply forgotten the paperwork for the very small number of cases shipped to Pennsylvania. As reported by Russell, Cilurzo stated. “We are a small mom-and-pop brewery and every once in a while something slips through the cracks.” What continues to be troubling is that this is essentially just paperwork errors and miscommunication and it’s being treated like the crime of the century. Did they really need to go in armed, like storm troopers? Were they expecting trouble or that gunfire might be necessary? It’s not like they were raiding a bootlegger’s den and could expect Tommy guns to be carried by everyone inside the distributorship. It seems absurd to think there might be some justification for that level of power display. As another remarked. “‘It’s just a clerical problem, but they’re treating this stuff like contraband,’ said one distributor who asked not to be identified.” See what we’ve created? Here’s a legitimate businessman who’s afraid to be identified while criticizing the PLCB and the state police for fear of retaliation, despite the fact that as a citizen he has every right to do so. When we aren’t comfortable exercising basic rights like that because we believe we’ll be targeted by the people we’re criticizing (who, let’s not forget, are there to serve the people), that, to me, is a very scary development indeed. Now that’s a chilling effect. This is just going from bad to worse. UPDATE: Thanks to James Costa for pointing this out. Today, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s food writer, Rick Nichols, gives us his take on the PLCB raids in Beer Raid Backfires on Liquor Agents . Tagged as: Government , Pennsylvania .

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Blending biomass into the coal stream that feeds electricity-generation plants offers the opportunity to reduce harmful emissions and create a market for renewable fuel, according to a biomass-energy expert in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences . And Pennsylvania power-plant operators have a big incentive for co-firing coal with biomass they buy from farmers, noted Daniel Ciolkosz , senior extension associate in agricultural and biological engineering. State mandate. “The state’s Alternative Fuels Portfolio Standard is a state mandate that requires, among other things, that 18 percent of Pennsylvania’s electricity be generated from renewable or alternative energy sources by 2021,” he said. “Biomass co-firing is one of the most promising ways to meet that standard.” Pennsylvania farmers and foresters interested in growing biomass such as switchgrass and small-diameter trees as energy crops soon are likely to have eager buyers for their products, Ciolkosz suggested. Tests under way “Several experiments have shown the feasibility of co-firing biomass with coal, including tests at the Shawville power plant in Clearfield County and the Seward power plant in Westmoreland County,” he said. The most common type of facilities for co-firing are large, coal-fired power plants, Ciolkosz said. “However, other coal-burning facilities, such as cement kilns, industrial boilers and coal-fired heating plants, are good candidates for co-firing as well.” One of the reasons biomass is well suited for co-firing with coal is that both biomass and coal are solid fuels, Ciolkosz pointed out. Therefore, equipment designed to burn coal can burn biomass as well. Higher moisture However, several differences between biomass and coal — such as biomass’s typically higher moisture content and its propensity to clog equipment when burned — have scientists scrambling for solutions to allow co-firing. “The chemical composition of coal is different from that of biomass,” he said. “Most notably, biomass has a higher hydrogen and oxygen content, and less carbon than coal. “As a result, biomass tends to generate less energy than coal — about two-thirds as much.” Biomass also tends to be less dense than coal, he added. And pulverized coal is nearly seven times denser than baled straw. “This means that fuel-feed systems will need to handle and deliver much higher volumes of fuel if co-firing is used.” Charcoal conversion Ciolkosz said one of the possible methods for reducing these problems is to convert the biomass to charcoal, which has a consistency similar to that of coal, or to densify biomass fuel into hard pellets or briquettes that may be more compatible with a combustor’s fuel-handling system. Potential market Farmers and foresters should be aware that co-firing may create a massive market for biomass. Currently, Pennsylvania uses approximately 57 million tons of coal per year. If 5 percent of the fuel were replaced with biomass, it would amount to 4.4 million tons of biomass per year. “That would nearly triple the current rate of biomass use for energy,” Ciolkosz said. “Consider a 1,000-megawatt power plant, which is a typical large plant by today’s standards. Co-firing at a 5 percent rate would require approximately 245,000 tons of biomass per year, which would require about 50,000 acres of high-yield production.” Think contracts Ciolkosz suggests that farmers and landowners consider securing long-term supply contracts from power producers, which could reduce the risk associated with growing biomass crops — especially perennial crops such as grasses or short-rotation woody crops, which require several years before they are ready for harvest. “When we consider the buyer’s perspective, the main benefit of co-firing is that it reduces pollution from the power plant,” he said. “Biomass is virtually free of sulfur and mercury, which leads to reductions in emissions that are proportional to the amount of biomass being used.” Carbon neutral Because biomass is also essentially carbon neutral, Ciolkosz expects power plant operators will soon want to burn it for energy. “When you consider the growing levels of concern and regulation surrounding the release of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels, even a 5 percent reduction in emissions can make the difference between meeting or missing an emissions target set by the government.” Get the details – Single copies of the Renewable and Alternative Energy Fact Sheet: Co-firing Biomass with Coal , is available free to Pennsylvania residents through county Penn State Cooperative Extension offices, or by contacting the College of Agricultural Sciences Publications Distribution Center at 814-865-6713 or by e-mail at AgPubsDist@psu.edu . – For cost information on out-of-state or bulk orders, contact the Publications Distribution Center. – The publication also is available online at http://pubs.cas.psu.edu/FreePubs/PDFs/ub044.pdf . .

The New York Times has some piquant details, including the fact that no sooner did Colleen Renee LaRose become a Muslim — by simply reciting a line of verse (no tests and no waiting, just like getting married in South Carolina in the pre-war days)– than all of a sudden she had very firm views on Middle Eastern conflicts. All of a sudden, she who probably could not locate Israel on a map, had become a fervent supporter of the Jihad against Israel: The “MySpace profile for a woman who refers to herself as JihadJane displays pictures of bloodshed and violence in the Middle East scrawled with messages like “Palestine We Are With You” and “Sympathize With Gaza.” Become a Muslim, and all of a sudden you have a Very Strong Opinion about things you never knew, and still do not know, a thing about. It was perhaps obvious for JihadJane to start with an ostentatious taking of the side of “Palestine” (i.e., supporting — janishly — the Jihad against Israel) but if asked what she thought of this or that conflict involving Muslims, she would now have an answer too, which would be to always and everywhere take the Muslim side: if asked what she now thought about Kashmir, you can get that she would insist that Kashmir belonged to Pakistan, and for that matter, India belonged to its rightful owners, the Muslims (whom those “colonialist” British had removed from power), that Abu Sayyaf terrorists in the Philippines should be backed to the hilt, that the Buddhists should get out of southern Thailand and leave it to the Muslims, that Khaddafy was right to declare Jihad against Switzeraldn for the minaret ban, that the Christians who were hacked to death in Nigeria had it coming to them, that the black Africans in the Sudan deserved, by the millions, to die because the Sudan belongs to Islam and to the Arabs, and so on and so bloody forth. Here’s the NYT article: Pennsylvania Woman Tied to Plot on Cartoonist By CHARLIE SAVAGE WASHINGTON — A Pennsylvania woman who called herself JihadJane was tied Tuesday to an alleged assassination plot against a Swedish cartoonist who depicted the prophet Muhammad atop the body of a dog. In an indictment unsealed Tuesday, federal prosecutors accused Colleen R. LaRose, an American from the Philadelphia suburbs, of linking up through the Internet with militants overseas and plotting to carry out a murder. Ms. LaRose, 46, was arrested in Philadelphia in October, but her case was kept under seal. Although the indictment does not identify the target, a law enforcement official said her case was linked to the arrests Tuesday of seven Muslims in Ireland in connection with a scheme to kill the cartoonist, Lars Vilks. A group linked to Al Qaeda had put a $100,000 bounty on his head for the cartoon, which the group perceived as an insult to Islam. European news reports said Irish police, who arrested the four men and three women, had coordinated the operation with the United States. A police statement issued Wednesday in Dublin said the Irish arrests followed a joint investigation by police in Ireland, the United States and “a number of European countries,” and that the suspects were being held at four police stations in an area about 100 miles south of Dublin, under a law that allowed for them to be held for up to seven days for questioning. News reports in Ireland said that the seven being held were from Algeria, Croatia, Palestine, Libya and the United States, and were aged between their mid-20’s and late 40’s. The Irish Times reported that American investigators believe that the leader of the group was an Algerian who has been living in Ireland for the past 10 years. A Justice Department spokesman would not confirm whether Ms. LaRose had been involved with the plot. Mark T. Wilson and Rossman D. Thompson, federal public defenders in Philadelphia who are representing Ms. LaRose, declined to comment. Michael L. Levy, the United States attorney for Eastern Pennsylvania, said in a statement the case illustrated how terrorists were looking for American recruits who could blend in. “It shatters any lingering thought that we can spot a terrorist based on appearance,” he said. Ms. LaRose is white, with blond hair and green eyes, according to the law enforcement official, who was not authorized to share details of the case and spoke only on the condition of anonymity. The official said Ms. LaRose was born in Michigan and later lived in Texas and Montgomery County, Pa. The indictment said that in mid-2008, Ms. LaRose, using the aliases JihadJane and Fatima LaRose, began posting on YouTube and other Internet sites messages about her desire to help Muslims. A MySpace profile for a woman who refers to herself as JihadJane displays pictures of bloodshed and violence in the Middle East scrawled with messages like “Palestine We Are With You” and “Sympathize With Gaza.” By early 2009, the court papers said, she was exchanging e-mail messages with unidentified co-conspirators in Southeast Asia and Europe and expressed a desire to become a martyr for an Islamist cause. The indictment refers to e-mail messages in which a conspirator, citing how Ms. LaRose’s appearance and American passport would make it easier for her to operate undetected, allegedly directed her in March 2009 to go to Sweden to help carry out a murder. She agreed to do so, writing, “I will make this my goal till I achieve it or die trying,” the indictment says. She and another unnamed American later posted online solicitations for money for that project, the document said. Ms. LaRose had attracted the government’s attention by then. She was questioned by F.B.I. agents on July 17, 2009, and falsely told them that she had never solicited money online for terrorism, had never used the alias JihadJane and had never made postings on a terrorist Web site, the court papers say. Despite drawing the F.B.I.’s attention, the indictment says Ms. LaRose traveled to Europe in August, joined an online community hosted by the intended Swedish victim in September and performed online searches to track him. She apparently never attempted to carry out the killing. The indictment also says Ms. LaRose recruited other people on the Internet to wage or support jihadist attacks. .