The Queens residents who have the bad fortune to live near the turbine say the noise is unbearable. The whistles go off each day when the turbines are tested. The noise can last for hours. Residents say they feel compelled to close their windows – even on
Not to worry, says Keyspan, the noise will be gone when the testing is done and the turbines are fully online. But the residents aren't buying the reassurance from the Keyspan execs. They have good reason to be suspicious. They already feel dumped on by the city. When Keyspan inaugurated the $350 million Ravenswood Power Plant, it promised the natural gas-powered facility would be the cleanest and most efficient in New York City. The turbine uses a combined cycle generator, which captures and recycles heat from the primary generator.
What they got is one of the noisiest power plants in the city. The city should make sure that Keyspan makes good on its promise. The residents of Ravenswood deserve at least that much.
Mule gets kicked
You get the bill
Talk about chutzpah! William Kanyi of Ghana allegedly tried to enter this country with 50 condoms filled with heroin lodged in his digestive track. The would-be mule passed 15 of the bags prematurely while still in the air and then allegedly tried to hide those condoms in his waist band. He was arrested as he passed through customs.
Fearing that the remaining condoms might burst, poisoning the stupid mule, the doctors at Mary Immaculate Hospital performed surgery to remove the condoms without his consent.
Kanyi in turn sued the doctors at Mary Immaculate Hospital for $25 million for malpractice. Here's a guy who gets caught trying to smuggle heroin into the country and then sues the doctors who saved his life. In some countries, such as Malaysia, a person can get the death penalty for this alone. Signs at the airport in Kuala Lumpur read, “Dada [illegal drugs] means death.” People who get caught smuggling drugs into that country can expect to die. But in America sleazy drug runners get to sue.
Fortunately the jury in Kanyi's civil case wasn't sympathetic. After two days of deliberation, they decided that Kanyi and his lawyers will get nothing. Not a penny.
A spokesman for the hospital called the case “an example of a frivolous lawsuit which consumes a lot of time and resources from our mission of providing health care. It just ends up making health care more expensive for everybody else.”
What Kanyi did was extremely dangerous. What the doctors did was an act of mercy. Shame on the attorneys who helped Kanyi file this ridiculous lawsuit wasting the valuable time and money of the doctors and the hospital.
