Window Cleaning, Snow, Ears, Burgers & Borrowing 10 Billion

Tony Evans of "A New View window cleaning" braves the snow & gives us another episode in the new third "weather or not" winter edition. Whilst Chris Dawber decides not to bother going to work!

A former window cleaner prone to attacking strangers was jailed indefinitely for chomping on a man’s ears while trying to rob him. Mark Rawlings, 24, who has been in and out of prison since his teens, was described as “unstable” by Judge Stephen John as he was sentenced to a minimum of two years for attempted robbery on December 18. The court heard how Rawlings, of Hazel Crescent, Whitley, attacked his victim after leaving a pub on August 8, at 11.30pm, the day after being released on licence from a previous offence. He said he did it because someone had stolen a pair of trainers given to him by his mum.
Sentencing, Judge John said: “The victim had left the pub when you came up behind him and put your arms around his throat, bit his ears and demanded he take you to a cashpoint saying you wanted at least a grand. “He managed to fight himself free and ran back to the pub where the door was locked behind him but you broke that lock and assaulted the publican. “This was a very frightening incident.”
Rawlings had been released on the same day from a two-year sentence imposed in June 2008 for one offence of actual bodily harm and two offences of common assault. He had been shouting abusively down a mobile phone at Reading train station when he was asked to quieten down and leave. Instead he punched a member of staff in the face, another two employees in the head and threatened to throw one of them on the railway track before striking a member of the public, the court heard.
In another offence in 2004, Rawlings, a window cleaner at the time, sank his teeth into a pensioner’s neck and another man’s ear. He also picked a fight with two men as they left a shop in Overdown Road in Tilehurst, biting one of them on the ear and finger and then punching the other. He was jailed for 13 months. Rawlings has been diagnosed with two personality disorders, describing him as emotionally unstable and socially incapable.
He claimed he carried out the offence in August because someone had stolen a pair of trainers from him that his mum had bought. Judge John added: “These are impulsive acts of violence against strangers, there is a worrying and unstable nature to your behaviour. “I have significant concerns that you were not able to cope on your return to the community. You have a marked tendency to act impulsively with no thought or consequence.” Rawlings was given an indeterminate sentence for the protection of the public and was warned if he did not deal with his behaviour he would never be released. As he was taken away, Rawlings shouted across to his father in the public gallery: “That’s alright, two years, it’s good.”

Dreaming to bridge surface science and materials science: An interview with Prof. Kai Wu of Peking University - What are the short-term and long-term research plans?
Kai: They are quite simple. In the short term, I would like to finish the projects that I’m working on. Surface science is a money-eating machine. I have to find extra funding to build the new machines we need to use in our research. In the long term, I would concentrate on the good science, in my eyes. I would definitely try to bridge surface science and nanomaterials. In conventional surface science, all crystals in the periodic table have been studied. One has to find a new field. I believe nanocrystals can open a new window for surface scientists because people can now prepare tons of novel nanocrystals.

Dubai's Khalifa Tower, World's Tallest Building, Opens with Fanfare: Building is so tall that it is ten degrees Celsius cooler at the top than at the base. The tallest building in the world has opened in the Gulf emirate of Dubai. But the 828-meter tower formerly known as the Burj Dubai has been renamed the Burj Khalifa, to honor the leader of neighboring Abu Dhabi, who gave Dubai $10 billion last month to help repay its debts. Dramatic music, fireworks and men parachuting from the sky helped Dubai introduce the world to its new tallest building. Its inauguration comes during a deep financial crisis in Dubai. Lead architect George Efstathiou says the building symbolizes the emirate's perseverance.

Brave window cleaners take on the challenge of the world's tallest skyscraper, Dubai's Burj Khalifa: Cleaning the windows of skyscrapers can be a daunting process. But never more so than for the company who landed the epic task of cleaning the windows of the world's tallest skyscraper in Dubai, the Burj Khalifa. Towering at 2,717ft and with 1,292,500 sq ft of glass, the £1billion Burj is an imposing building, and one designers were determined would be sparkling clean in time for yesterday's extravagant opening ceremony. Dale Harding, the general manager of cleaning company Cox Gomyl, said the firm installed £5 million of hi-tech equipment, including unique window-cleaning carousels which they designed, to ensure the Burj was constantly clean. Twelve machines weighing 13 tons carry up to 36 cleaners, who use ordinary soapy water to wash down the Burj's 24,830 reflective windows in a process that takes three months from top to bottom.

The cleaners stand on the specially designed machines, which emerge from cavities in the skyscraper and track along rails skirting its curved towers. Mr Harding said the company, based in Melbourne, Australia, had been working overtime to get the Burj gleaming for Monday's extravagant opening ceremony. He said: 'It's an enormous challenge. The architects had some fairly high expectations. 'It's an iconic building with high exposure. They wanted it as clean as possible, particularly for the opening. There have been some fairly tight deadlines over the past few months. 'It's an incredible construction. People are focusing on the height of the building but the sheer size of it, the footprint, is huge. It's really 10-15 conventional buildings.' Click pictures to enlarge.

And in a spectacular blunder just months before the opening ceremony, which was attended by over 6,000 people, Samsung Besix Arabtec Joint Venture, which built the Burj, were forced to rush in Mick Flaherty after they realised they had forgotten to fit lights to the tip. The 35-year-old, originally from Tyne and Wear, and his company Total Solutions Middle East, worked on the pre-fabricated spire of the building for more than a month before it was officially unveiled to the world. His daily commute to work involved him taking five lifts to the 160th floor, climbing through a further seven tiers on vertical ladders, then squeezing into the 6ft wide spire and out of a hatch. Mr Flaherty said: 'I felt like I could see the whole world. It was absolutely breathtaking.

Window cleaning chemical injected into fast food hamburger meat: If you're in the beef business, what do you do with all the extra cow parts and trimmings that have traditionally been sold off for use in pet food? You scrape them together into a pink mass, inject them with a chemical to kill the e.coli, and sell them to fast food restaurants to make into hamburgers. That's what's been happening all across the USA with beef sold to McDonald's, Burger King, school lunches and other fast food restaurants, according to a New York Times article. The beef is injected with ammonia, a chemical commonly used in glass cleaning and window cleaning products.
This is all fine with the USDA, which endorses the procedure as a way to make the hamburger beef "safe" enough to eat. Ammonia kills e.coli, you see, and the USDA doesn't seem to be concerned with the fact that people are eating ammonia in their hamburgers. This ammonia-injected beef comes from a company called Beef Products, Inc. As NYT reports, the federal school lunch program used a whopping 5.5 million pounds of ammonia-injected beef trimmings from this company in 2008. This company reportedly developed the idea of using ammonia to sterilize beef before selling it for human consumption.
Fascinating. So you can inject a beef product with a chemical found in glass cleaning products and simply call it a "processing agent" -- with the full permission and approval of the USDA, no less! Does anyone doubt any longer how deeply embedded the USDA is with the beef industry? Apparently, this practice of injecting fast food beef with ammonia has been a well-kept secret for years. I never knew this was going on, and this news appears to be new information to virtually everyone. The real shocker is that "a majority" of fast food restaurants use this ammonia-injected cow-derived product in their hamburger meat. It sort of makes you wonder: What else is in there that we don't know about? "School lunch officials and other customers complained about the taste and smell of the beef," says the NYT. No wonder. It's been pumped full of chemicals. It's almost enough to make you want to puke. If you do so, please aim it at your windows, because ammonia cuts through grease like nothing else, leaving your windows squeaky clean!

Scaffold affects business: The company behind rapper-turned-fashion guru Sean "Diddy" Combs is suing the landlord of its flagship New York shop over a scaffold that has been hanging over its window for more than three years. It wants at least $2.5 million in damages and freedom from its more than 660,000 dollars-a-year lease. It claims the scaffold is affecting business and is not good for the company's image.

Chemicals & What Goes In Your Bucket?

Every couple of times a year or more, the window cleaning forums come back to which concoctions or bought solutions are best for cleaning windows. And each time the users religeously vote for the solution they have used & the past experience they have had with other brand names. Some vote for dish-washing liquids others for brand names especially formulated just for that - cleaning windows. And others often try to concoct a mixture that they swear is the best yet, often at risk to their own health.
Jack Nelson of the MWCoA has started his own "Green Environmental Education Section" & will show you the proper way to handle and use the chemicals to the best of their abilities.

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Reports about a new study which found that nurses are more likely to suffer from asthma than other healthcare workers, because they are in regular contact with cleaning chemicals, have featured throughout the media in recent days.
The story sounded familiar, and looking back through Cleanzine's archives I discovered that we had covered a similar story on two occasions. The first, headed: 'Link between bleach and breathing disorders', reported on a Spanish study of 550 people that found a link between breathing disorders suffered by domestic cleaners and exposure to bleach and possibly to other irritant agents.
The second, broadcast 18 months ago and headed: 'Occupational asthma', covered another Spanish study, which revealed that cleaners are 71% more likely than the rest of the population to suffer from occupational asthma. This study involved 6,837 people from 13 countries, all of whom participated in the European Community Respiratory Health Survey, (1990 and 1995). It was found that exposure to known substances which trigger occupational asthma raises the risk of developing it by 60%. It was also found that if a person has been exposed to asthma-causing irritants during specific incidents, his or her risk of developing 'new-onset' asthma is three-times more likely than that of the general public. The act of mixing cleaning products or being involved in chemical spillages are considered asthma-causing irritants.

This particular study found that nurses were 122% more likely to suffer from asthma and cited a number of reasons for the increased risk. The researchers said: "Nurses could be exposed to sensitising substances, respiratory allergens, and irritants including sterilisers and disinfectants such as glutaraldehyde or bleach."
The latest study, which was carried out in the US and included 3,650 Texan healthcare professionals - including 941 nurses - found that nurses who are routinely exposed to disinfectants and other cleaning products are 72% more likely to develop asthma than healthcare workers in other fields, and 57% more likely to report asthma-like symptoms. Further, nurses who regularly clean medical instruments are 67% more likely to develop asthma. Nurses who used powdered latex gloves before the year 2000 were 6% more likely to have newly diagnosed asthma. "Substituting cleaning agents with environmentally friendly 'green chemicals' and using appropriate personal care protection could help minimise occupational exposures in this professional group," wrote the University of North Carolina at Charlotte's researchers.

Can you clean and still be green?

Chlorinated bleach. The chemical, which, according to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, is the most commonly ingested poison by small children, is virtually ubiquitous because of its whitening and disinfectant powers. The Environmental Protection Agency EPA reports that the use of bleach can cause health effects ranging from skin and lung irritation to blindness and cancer. Its byproduct is a carcinogenic substance known as dioxin.
EGBE. A common though unlisted, ingredient in products such as Pine-Sol, Simple Green and Windex, EGBE has been shown to cause reproductive disorders in lab animals, reveals Women's Voices for the Earth, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving women's health. Furthermore, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry reports that EGBE is a known carcinogen.

Phenols. These deadly compounds are found in many cleansers that exhibit a pine scent. According to the EPA, phenols can be "acutely toxic," leading to disorders ranging from irritation of the skin and lungs to kidney and liver disorders to cardiac irregularities, among many, many other symptoms.
Ammonia. Found in floor polishes, window cleaners and other cleansers, ammonia is a corrosive substance that can produce intense irritation in the eyes and the respiratory system. Sufficient exposure can result in burns severe enough to cause blindness, lung disease and even death, according to the EPA.
Formaldehyde. Like ammonia, formaldehyde is an ingredient in many cleaning agents that can cause respiratory irritation and distress. However, the EPA reports that it is also known to induce asthma attacks and may lead to cancer.
Indeed, the list of toxic chemicals found in cleaning agents is virtually endless. Other substances to avoid include: sodium hydroxide, sulfamic acid, butyl cellosolve 2-butoxyethanol, lye, petroleum distillates, sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid and morpholine.

The 54-year-old actor John Travolta and his wife Kelly Preston insisted on staying by 16-year-old Jett's side as medics battled to save him, rather than follow the ambulance in a car. However, shortly after arriving at Freeport Hospital in Grand Bahama, doctors broke the news to the couple that their son was dead. Jett, who had suffered from seizures from the age of two, was found unconscious on Friday morning in the bathroom of the family home at the Old Bahama Bay resort in the Bahamas. Travolta said he fought to revive the teenager before paramedics arrived. Travolta's lawyers – Michael Ossi and Michael McDermott – were quoted as saying that Jett suffered from grand mal, a form of epilepsy that causes convulsions and unconsciousness.
The lawyers said he had been treated for some years with a drug that stopped the fits from occurring. But after a while, the medicine became ineffective and caused liver damage. So the course was discontinued and Jett started suffering a serious seizure every few days. The film star is a follower of the Church of Scientology, and has previously said that the church's teachings were of help in detoxifying his son during earlier medical problems. Jett was diagnosed with Kawasaki disease when he was a toddler – a condition his parents ascribed to the chemicals in household cleaning products used in their home.

10,000 Windows

Crystal Cathedral gets a wash down. GARDEN GROVE The glass panels of the Crystal Cathedral will likely have an added shimmer in the coming days as the sun's rays bounce off the Orange County landmark. That's because the Cathedral is getting its first wash down in two years. Why the hiatus? The cathedral has more than 10,000 windows of tempered silver-colored glass that are held in place by a lace-like frame of white steel trusses. Of course, cleaning it involves a lot of man hours, expense and special equipment, says Ed Quiroga, facilities director for the Cathedral. "It takes quite a lot of work to maintain a glass house like this one especially when it comes to washing it," he said. It's not your average window-washing job, but an elaborate two-week process. Five men are hoisted up in a specially designed basket by a crane. The basket is equipped with brushes on the side that spray de-ionized water with ammonia, he explains.
"The basket goes up and down with the men until all the windows are washed and cleaned," Quiroga said. The ammonia in the water prevents spots and streaks in the glass after it's cleaned, he said. They use at least 100 gallons of ammonia and tens of thousands of gallons of water. It takes a lot of preparatory work even before workers get to that stage. First they go up in a different basket and put suction cups on the glass to check for loose panels. "We want to fix it because it's the only way to minimize leaks inside the house," Quiroga says. The caulking takes a week and the washing itself lasts another week. Workers are preparing to wash down the Cathedral this week. Usually, this is an annual ritual, but the Cathedral hasn't been washed in two years because of the time and expense involved, Quiroga said. It also creates a scene with curious passers by stopping to look at the laborious process. "It's a lot of work and a lot of hours,'' Quiroga said. "But the Cathedral looks really beautiful right after it's done and we get a lot of comments about that."