Apparently, no one cares about schools in buffalo, lol - e.g. last post.
Anyhow, I was reading google news this morning and I saw that 6000+ chinese babies have become ill aftre consuming formula that has the same toxic compound that killed pets when consuming chinese pet food a while back
Melamine, a white crystalline powder used in making plastics and tanning leather that was found in the infant formula, was at the heart of China's troubles last year, too.
That compound is melamine. Here is the wikipedia article
I really don't understand how it ended up in the infant formula after it was known to kill pets but it did, and now the babies are dying.
The crazier part is I noticed these really pretty hard plastic bowls and kitchen wares are showing up everywhere and are actually just called melamine bowls.
You can get them just about anywhere that has kitchen supplies and goes from fancy to more common ones at target
So my question is who uses these and why. Clearly over time, either through heat or scrapping, litle peices of melamine end up in your food.
libertad - 12/11/08 13:47 I'm looking for glass storage containers and all I found were these. :::link:::
Everything else has plastic lids. What do you use? I really like those that I found but they are expensive and they don't come in any other sizes for some reason.
All my kitchenware is either Corelle (Vitrelle - a type of 3-layered glass) or stainless steel and some aluminium.
paul - 09/19/08 17:28 It doesn't break down easily unless you get it hot by putting it in the microwave. Don't tell me people don't forget and do that.
tinypliny - 09/18/08 21:07 To answer your question melamine doesn't break easily and is cheap. That's why people would use it. :(
ajay - 09/18/08 14:56 Melamine tests the same as protein when added to food.
So, when a bulk food supplier claims that his <whatever> contains at least 22% protein, the buyer can test it and verify. If the seller is unscrupulous, he can add melamine to the food and the test results will show a higher concentration of protein. Since melamine is so much cheaper than actual protein itself, it makes financial sense to cheat like this.
It's a different matter, of course, that melamine is DANGEROUS to your health. But anyone interested in making a quick buck at all costs will not let such a silly little thing like that stop him.
BTW: melamine was also at the root of the pet food recall a couple of years ago. It's bad that they added it to pet food; but to baby food? Even hell is too good a place for such assholes.
zobar - 09/18/08 10:05 I like these in particular :::link:::
But they're probably not as toxic as these keen uranium-glazed bowls they made in the '40s: :::link:::
- Z
09/17/2008 19:57 #45712
Buffalo Public Schools 818th/829? Category: school
(e:matthew) came home form work all riled up about the Buffalo public school system, which I assume is due to the ladies he works for talking about it as we have no kids.
Anyhow, I didn't believe him how bad it was because the people I know who went to Buffalo public school seem okay. I figured it was just private schooling parents freakin out about how bad the schools are.
Then I tried looking up some info about the schools in buffalo and happend upon schooldigger.com's entry for Buffalo. Apparently, Buffalo is 818th out of 829 cities reviewed. Yes, that puts it at 0/5 stars.
Omg, look at Buffalo Elementary School of Technology over at 313 South Division Street - It is 2273rd/2278 public elementary schools in state ranking. Can it be worse? Yes, but only 5 places worse ;(.
Clearly it is a economics issue as that school has 97% of students on discounted/free lunch.
It seems like all the white people are leaving. Looks at the stats. Its interesting that this site offers so much information about each school. Sadly, there is not much info for the private and charter schools.
Same with Bennett which was 750th out of 776 public high schools.
Same with Buffalo Traditional School which is now close
Where did all the whities go, this is during the 90s and early 2000s that it all changed? Did they used to have forced integration that ended. Just look at the numbers that dropped since 2000.
Hutch Tech got great reviews. Is there any hope for buffalo with such a crappy education system in place? Is there even a solution?
metalpeter - 09/18/08 20:09 When I was in School I went to a Good High School and I liked it. I can't say how things are at other schools or how things are now. I think there is a big game between schools like Da Vinci, Honors, Hutch and the Special Programs at Mac Kinley (yeah my spelling sucks because of my early years and I was never good at it) and the Nieghborhood schools. I think any school that you have to apply for has an advantage. First of all they don't let dumb kids in, secondly since you have to try and get in, that means you want to be there, you want to get an education, it isn't that you are there because you have to be. Once a school is good then the good teachers want to go there. Yes there are teachers who want to help the "Troubled Kids" but no one wants to spend more time or watching or making sure kids are good then teaching. I'm not saying places like Grover are bad. But the preception that they are is what causes them to get worse. Lets say I have a kid and I want a good education then I send him to a Private school. So now this good kid isn't in a public school but if he was he could make it better and maybe he becomes friends with a troubled kid or someone who wants to learn but Mom is never home so he isn't taught that education is important. But yet this "good" kid is a "good" influnce on him so he does better in school then if the good kid was at some private school. Since the good kids aren't sent to the city schools it makes the school worse so then no other good kids go there. I'm not saying the white kids are good and the black are bad. But often that is the perception of parents. So if a good student doesn't get into Tech or Honors it is off to some private school or they even move. Yes people in the burbs do this also they will sell there house and move to change disticts so they can be in the good district. The school system is so complex that no comment could really cover it all. You also have to look at sprawl and that is a factor also.
jason - 09/18/08 13:56 It's a disgrace, certainly. Our state leads the nation in school spending, but ranks 48th in 4 year graduation rates. A full THIRD of our students don't graduate on time. Ouch!
Unfortunately, it isn't about outcomes or results. Our situation isn't good. Teacher's unions are sacred cows, our school board is corrupt, and nobody is looking out for the kids!
Sam Hoyt calls the answer "school choice" - This means supporting charter schools which actually are accountable for their results. I wonder how many hate mails he gets from the flaming hypocrites at the BTF every day.
gardenmama - 09/18/08 13:07 As an employee of the BPS I have much to say on this (most not so good), but a response will require some time on my part. Perhaps I will have something together this weekend. I think it's an important issue to the future vitality of our city, and nationally as well. Thanks for this post - it's good to know people care and are paying attention.
09/14/2008 11:12 #45675
Our Lady Of Lourdes Sold for $25,000? Category: buffalo
This morning I was reading (photos there) and seriously, I cannot believe how cheap Our Lady of Lourdes went for $25,000
These pics are from fixitbuffalo's Flickr collection
Then on Buffalo Rising I saw in the comments that WGRZ said it didn't actually sell because the price was too low.
What I want to know is where is Roswell/Kaleida on this one. It is liek one block form the medical campus and has a huge ass parking lot. COnsidering that some Roswell employees park at HSBC Arena you would think that this would be an awesome preperyt purchase. The building itself could be rehabbed into an auditorium like montante. I mean for such a low price, they could invest into the building.
tinypliny - 09/14/08 12:54 Yeah, but Roswell has a huge parking problem. I bet all the alternative solutions are going to cost just as much!
janelle - 09/14/08 11:47 These old buildings have such hidden problems. I think it would be such a headache to take on such a property.
lilho - 09/14/08 02:11 wow hipster!!!!! i like that pic. maybe when the hospital forces me to wear scrub,. i can wear a hot pink jumpsuit like that
09/14/2008 10:12 #45674
A great night of dancing and rocky Category: music
Wow, this is a long journal but the videos are funny. The music is art festival turned out to be pretty great despite the rain. Lots of people showed up.
Here was the electronic music stage on the side of the building. It was a great stage, speaker setup, location - except that it was on a hill and the grass was wet.
We were there during the day with (e:matthew)'s sister Mary, (e:jim) and (e:james) but it was pouring. At night we went back with (e:mike) to go see Dharma Lab . I didn't take any pictures because it was dark out and I was busy dancing, oh - ya and it was pouring but here is a pic of Chris from Dharma Lab, we went to high school together.
Everytime I see him, I always promise him I will go see them and something comes up. This time I actually was able to make it and the venue and music were both awesome. Another member of the group is is (e:soma)'s brother. I saw (e:soma) dancing in the crowd.
The set was amazing. I had not had so much fun dancing since a goa party in germany that (e:terry) and I attended oh so many years ago ;( I saw people taking pics I wonder if anything is online yet.
I danced like mad. In fact I am so curious to see what happend to the poor lawn at the Albright Knox after all the people dancing and stomping everywhere in the rain. I have a feeling they did not think it out very much considering the time of year and the amount of people. That grass is going to seriously look like shit for a good long while.
Afterwards, the evening did not end. We saw Kristina and Rocky there and then went back to the house to hang out and play risk - oh and drink milk shakes. It was nice to see Kristina who I hadn't seen in so long.
I actually didn't play risk but the rest of them did. I think rocky and (e:terry) drank a whole case of beer. Then Rocky wanted to go out dancing at Ms. Kitty's the lesbian bar turned dance club OHM. As with the rest fo the day - it started pouring so we sat on the porch and watched the storm as (e:Terry) and Rocky babbled nonsense back and forth to each other. Kristina said he usually doesn't have anyone to go on with liek that so it stops and I thought the same about (e:terry) - they started to sound like two insane asylum patients - it was pretty funny.
Kritina decided to go home - Kristina got off easy, lol. I baby sat the beer boys with (e:mike) to make sure they didn't get in too much trouble, drinking water the whole time.
OHM is not a dance club - it was fucking Country Western - everyone had cowboy hats and bolo ties. Rocky was drunk enough to ask if they could change the music, lol.
So we spent the rest of the night at Cathode, just (e:mike), (e:terry), Rocky and I having a guys night out at the gay bar. Sadly, we were the only people there and we danced the whole time to the video screen and Videos of Robyn . Apparently, rocky really likes to dance too. He and (e:Terry) play fought, then (e:mike) and (e:terry) and rocky and (e:mike), eventually a bottle of beer spilled.
The vjay played some political videos which were pretty funny:
A cartoon called Campaignin'
A video of george bush fucks america, it is so funny
And then the gayest video I ever saw ended the evening
When we got home I showed Rocky to his room but he kept going down stairs and trying to walk home. I was like dude, "How do you expect me to explain to your wife that you walked home to amherst and I didn't know where you are?" He refused to sleep so (e:matthew) had the brilliant idea to put on some looney toons DVD and like in ten minutes he was snoring.
In the morning when I work up, it looked like he couldn't figure out the door and tried to escape out the window in the vestibule. Oh beer.
james - 09/15/08 12:01 Thanks for having us over. We owe you utero-lamb.
And way to go (e:matthew), with using his day-care skilz to put Rocky to bed.
iriesara - 09/15/08 11:37 Chris WHO IS THAT!?!? I know I totally know who that is, it's right on the tip of my brain!
mike - 09/14/08 14:10 their babble on the porch was ridiculously funny ending with rocky's shoes in the garden plants and terry trying to find them. how did i lose at risk to them when they both had like 20 beers and i had 1.
tinypliny - 09/14/08 12:56 I got soaked coming back from Rochester and now have a massive cold. Boooo...
metalpeter - 09/14/08 11:10 with out watching the videos it sounds like you had a pretty good time. I hope you enjoyed the part of it you spent at MIA, I was pretty tired of the rain and I did run into (e:jim) and (e:james). I checked out the DJ place for a little bit but it was later at night.
I'm looking for glass storage containers and all I found were these. :::link:::
Everything else has plastic lids. What do you use? I really like those that I found but they are expensive and they don't come in any other sizes for some reason.
I hope not. :/
All my kitchenware is either Corelle (Vitrelle - a type of 3-layered glass) or stainless steel and some aluminium.
It doesn't break down easily unless you get it hot by putting it in the microwave. Don't tell me people don't forget and do that.
To answer your question melamine doesn't break easily and is cheap. That's why people would use it. :(
Melamine tests the same as protein when added to food.
So, when a bulk food supplier claims that his <whatever> contains at least 22% protein, the buyer can test it and verify. If the seller is unscrupulous, he can add melamine to the food and the test results will show a higher concentration of protein. Since melamine is so much cheaper than actual protein itself, it makes financial sense to cheat like this.
It's a different matter, of course, that melamine is DANGEROUS to your health. But anyone interested in making a quick buck at all costs will not let such a silly little thing like that stop him.
BTW: melamine was also at the root of the pet food recall a couple of years ago. It's bad that they added it to pet food; but to baby food? Even hell is too good a place for such assholes.
I like these in particular :::link:::
But they're probably not as toxic as these keen uranium-glazed bowls they made in the '40s:
:::link:::
- Z