Radioactive Iodine-131 in Pennsylvania rainwater sample is 3300% above federal drinking water standard
Remember TWO very important things when hearing these radiation reports worldwide. One: they are only testing for Iodine-131 and generally not the more dangerous and long-lasting isotopes. Two: they are now RAISING the safe limits on these standards that were set in the 1950s. So they can lie to you. And tell you it's okay.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Calif. drought officially ends after snowy winter
The truth is and has been, that the drought in the western US has been over since 2005. Since that time, we've had record snow and rain falls leaving all aquifers, reservoirs, and lakes full to over-flowing. Remember that when the water utilities swing the drought banner for higher rates as they do each and every single summer.
-------------------
Calif. drought officially ends after snowy winter
By DON THOMPSON
A drought that loomed over some of California's most fertile farmland officially ended Wednesday after a winter of relentless mountain storms that piled snow up to three stories high and could keep some ski resorts open until the Fourth of July.
More than 61 feet of snow has fallen in the Sierra Nevada high country so far this season, second only to 1950-51, when 65 feet fell, according to records kept by the California Department of Transportation. And more snow is possible in April, raising the prospect of an all-time record.
When it melts, the snow will bring relief to hundreds of communities and many farms that provide fruits and vegetables to the nation.
Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday repealed a statewide drought declaration made in 2008 by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who called for a state of emergency in February 2009 after three years of low water levels.
Brown acted after state officials reported the water content in the Sierra snowpack at 165 percent of normal for this time of year. That is one of the wettest winters since 1970, according to the state Department of Water Resources.
It trails only 1983, when the water content in the snowpack was 227 percent of normal, and 1995, which was 182 percent of the average for the end of March.
The wet winter means state and federal water agencies will be able to provide more water to urban and agricultural areas as the snowmelt fills reservoirs this summer.
The Sierra snowpack is crucial for California's water supply. As it melts, it feeds a vast system of lakes and aqueducts that move water from the north through the agriculturally rich Central Valley and eventually to Southern California, where most of the state's residents live.
Dry winters the past three years meant water managers could deliver only between 35 percent and 50 percent of the amount requested by cities and farms. That, combined with federally mandated pumping restrictions to protect a threatened fish, forced growers to leave thousands of acres unplanted and to lay off thousands of farmworkers.
Some cities imposed conservation measures that included restrictions on watering lawns.
Now the snow has piled as high as the power lines in some places and has been so deep throughout most of the 400-mile mountain range that it caused roofs to collapse. Some ski resorts had to close temporarily when they received more snow than they could handle.
Chris Rivest's father sent him from San Francisco to the family vacation cabin near the Sierra Nevada crest with a seemingly simple chore - clear it and the driveway of snow.
When Rivest arrived earlier this week at the A-frame near Soda Springs, about 90 miles northeast of Sacramento, the snow was at least 10 feet high on the deck.
"My dad wants me to clear the deck," the ponytailed 21-year-old said Monday, as he labored to clean up the driveway with a snow blower. "How do I even begin to do that? Where would I put the snow? This is absurd."
Seasonal snow accumulation records already have been set at some ski resorts, including Squaw Valley USA near the north shore of Lake Tahoe, Heavenly Mountain Resort on the lake's south side and Mammoth Mountain, the sprawling Eastern Sierra resort that attracts Southern California skiers and snowboarders.
At Squaw Valley, home of the 1960 Winter Olympics, ski patrol guides had to create tunnels just to reach their warming huts, and avalanches broke out windows at two lift stations, said Wes Schimmelpfenning, a 68-year-old patrolman who has worked there for 48 years.
Nearly 59 feet of snow has fallen there so far this winter, beating the old record by 29 inches.
Squaw is extending its season through Memorial Day, while Mammoth, with a peak elevation exceeding 11,000 feet, might remain open through Independence Day.
"I'm out plowing driveways, and we can't even find the houses," said Norm Sayler, who used to run Donner Ski Ranch along Interstate 80 and now operates a snow-plowing business near Donner Summit. "I've been up here since 1954, and personally this has been the toughest winter I've ever had here."
Authorities are warning mountain homeowners to beware of failing roofs and vents and flues that have become blocked by snow.
The snow caused roofs to partially collapse last weekend at a bowling alley, a logging business and a hardware store in the Sierra foothills town of Pollock Pines, about 60 miles east of Sacramento.
"I better not hear Sacramento talking about drought for a while," said Max Ramsey, 38, who on Monday was chipping snow and ice off the roof of a building that houses the Soda Springs General Store, post office and a vacation rental property business. "You get 60 feet of snow, it does a lot of damage."
Building owner Tony Paduano said his wife heard "a large cracking noise" on Sunday as one of the roof's support beams gave way.
The California winter started off intense late in 2010, dried out in January, then came roaring back with a series of heavy storms in February and March.
The storms dumped so much snow at the University of California Central Sierra Snow Lab near Soda Springs that the 15-foot-tall measuring stake was buried.
Researcher Randall Osterhuber had to extend the stake another 6 feet to keep up with the more than 18 feet of snow on the ground, the fourth-deepest total since record-keeping began there in 1946. More than 47 feet of snow has fallen there this season.
Old railroad records dating to 1879 put the deepest accumulation near Donner Summit at 66 feet in 1938. The most snow on the ground at any one time was 31 feet, in both 1880 and 1890.
Residents near Soda Springs said they had been without electricity or phone service intermittently over the past 10 days after storms toppled power and phone lines.
The snow rose above the third-story windows at the house 18-year-old Luis Rico is sharing with five other employees of the nearby Royal Gorge cross-country skiing resort, which closed all last week because of the storms.
The friends occupied their time by building a 15-foot-tall igloo with blocks of snow they cut with a chain saw. One morning, they woke up to find the doorway completely buried and had to tunnel their way out.
"We pretty much had to swim to get out of there," he said.
Read more: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/03/30/v-lite/1605041/near-record-sierra-snow-good-news.html#ixzz1ICdJyG8f
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/03/30/v-lite/1605041/near-record-sierra-snow-good-news.html
-------------------
Calif. drought officially ends after snowy winter
By DON THOMPSON
A drought that loomed over some of California's most fertile farmland officially ended Wednesday after a winter of relentless mountain storms that piled snow up to three stories high and could keep some ski resorts open until the Fourth of July.
More than 61 feet of snow has fallen in the Sierra Nevada high country so far this season, second only to 1950-51, when 65 feet fell, according to records kept by the California Department of Transportation. And more snow is possible in April, raising the prospect of an all-time record.
When it melts, the snow will bring relief to hundreds of communities and many farms that provide fruits and vegetables to the nation.
Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday repealed a statewide drought declaration made in 2008 by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who called for a state of emergency in February 2009 after three years of low water levels.
Brown acted after state officials reported the water content in the Sierra snowpack at 165 percent of normal for this time of year. That is one of the wettest winters since 1970, according to the state Department of Water Resources.
It trails only 1983, when the water content in the snowpack was 227 percent of normal, and 1995, which was 182 percent of the average for the end of March.
The wet winter means state and federal water agencies will be able to provide more water to urban and agricultural areas as the snowmelt fills reservoirs this summer.
The Sierra snowpack is crucial for California's water supply. As it melts, it feeds a vast system of lakes and aqueducts that move water from the north through the agriculturally rich Central Valley and eventually to Southern California, where most of the state's residents live.
Dry winters the past three years meant water managers could deliver only between 35 percent and 50 percent of the amount requested by cities and farms. That, combined with federally mandated pumping restrictions to protect a threatened fish, forced growers to leave thousands of acres unplanted and to lay off thousands of farmworkers.
Some cities imposed conservation measures that included restrictions on watering lawns.
Now the snow has piled as high as the power lines in some places and has been so deep throughout most of the 400-mile mountain range that it caused roofs to collapse. Some ski resorts had to close temporarily when they received more snow than they could handle.
Chris Rivest's father sent him from San Francisco to the family vacation cabin near the Sierra Nevada crest with a seemingly simple chore - clear it and the driveway of snow.
When Rivest arrived earlier this week at the A-frame near Soda Springs, about 90 miles northeast of Sacramento, the snow was at least 10 feet high on the deck.
"My dad wants me to clear the deck," the ponytailed 21-year-old said Monday, as he labored to clean up the driveway with a snow blower. "How do I even begin to do that? Where would I put the snow? This is absurd."
Seasonal snow accumulation records already have been set at some ski resorts, including Squaw Valley USA near the north shore of Lake Tahoe, Heavenly Mountain Resort on the lake's south side and Mammoth Mountain, the sprawling Eastern Sierra resort that attracts Southern California skiers and snowboarders.
At Squaw Valley, home of the 1960 Winter Olympics, ski patrol guides had to create tunnels just to reach their warming huts, and avalanches broke out windows at two lift stations, said Wes Schimmelpfenning, a 68-year-old patrolman who has worked there for 48 years.
Nearly 59 feet of snow has fallen there so far this winter, beating the old record by 29 inches.
Squaw is extending its season through Memorial Day, while Mammoth, with a peak elevation exceeding 11,000 feet, might remain open through Independence Day.
"I'm out plowing driveways, and we can't even find the houses," said Norm Sayler, who used to run Donner Ski Ranch along Interstate 80 and now operates a snow-plowing business near Donner Summit. "I've been up here since 1954, and personally this has been the toughest winter I've ever had here."
Authorities are warning mountain homeowners to beware of failing roofs and vents and flues that have become blocked by snow.
The snow caused roofs to partially collapse last weekend at a bowling alley, a logging business and a hardware store in the Sierra foothills town of Pollock Pines, about 60 miles east of Sacramento.
"I better not hear Sacramento talking about drought for a while," said Max Ramsey, 38, who on Monday was chipping snow and ice off the roof of a building that houses the Soda Springs General Store, post office and a vacation rental property business. "You get 60 feet of snow, it does a lot of damage."
Building owner Tony Paduano said his wife heard "a large cracking noise" on Sunday as one of the roof's support beams gave way.
The California winter started off intense late in 2010, dried out in January, then came roaring back with a series of heavy storms in February and March.
The storms dumped so much snow at the University of California Central Sierra Snow Lab near Soda Springs that the 15-foot-tall measuring stake was buried.
Researcher Randall Osterhuber had to extend the stake another 6 feet to keep up with the more than 18 feet of snow on the ground, the fourth-deepest total since record-keeping began there in 1946. More than 47 feet of snow has fallen there this season.
Old railroad records dating to 1879 put the deepest accumulation near Donner Summit at 66 feet in 1938. The most snow on the ground at any one time was 31 feet, in both 1880 and 1890.
Residents near Soda Springs said they had been without electricity or phone service intermittently over the past 10 days after storms toppled power and phone lines.
The snow rose above the third-story windows at the house 18-year-old Luis Rico is sharing with five other employees of the nearby Royal Gorge cross-country skiing resort, which closed all last week because of the storms.
The friends occupied their time by building a 15-foot-tall igloo with blocks of snow they cut with a chain saw. One morning, they woke up to find the doorway completely buried and had to tunnel their way out.
"We pretty much had to swim to get out of there," he said.
Read more: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/03/30/v-lite/1605041/near-record-sierra-snow-good-news.html#ixzz1ICdJyG8f
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/03/30/v-lite/1605041/near-record-sierra-snow-good-news.html
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
This is all around every living organism in the Northern Hemisphere
* Uranium 238: 4.5 billion years
* Uranium 235: 710 million years
* Plutonium 239: 24,100 years
* Strontium 90: 30 years
* Caesium 134: two years
* Caesium 137: 30 years (Caesium can be absorbed in food and water or inhaled as dust. It is easily taken up by plants and animals.)
* Ruthenium 103: 39 days; Ruthenium 106, about a year
* Iodine 131: 8 days
plus a dozen other radionuclides even more toxic. Now the news is spewing the half-truth that you get more radiation from the Sun than from these particle emitters. That's accurate, but what they fail to mention is that the SUN provides NON-IONIZING RADIATION (which is good for you and you need it, as does all life on Earth) and these particles are IONIZING RADIATION, which causes cancers, cellular disruption, and DNA damage.
* Uranium 235: 710 million years
* Plutonium 239: 24,100 years
* Strontium 90: 30 years
* Caesium 134: two years
* Caesium 137: 30 years (Caesium can be absorbed in food and water or inhaled as dust. It is easily taken up by plants and animals.)
* Ruthenium 103: 39 days; Ruthenium 106, about a year
* Iodine 131: 8 days
plus a dozen other radionuclides even more toxic. Now the news is spewing the half-truth that you get more radiation from the Sun than from these particle emitters. That's accurate, but what they fail to mention is that the SUN provides NON-IONIZING RADIATION (which is good for you and you need it, as does all life on Earth) and these particles are IONIZING RADIATION, which causes cancers, cellular disruption, and DNA damage.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
The face of coming fascism
~ Sinclair Lewis
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
What They're Covering Up at Fukushima
Interviewers: Yo and Maeda Mari
Yo: Today many people saw water being sprayed on the reactors from the air and from the ground, but is this effective?
Hirose: . . . If you want to cool a reactor down with water, you have to circulate the water inside and carry the heat away, otherwise it has no meaning. So the only solution is to reconnect the electricity. Otherwise it’s like pouring water on lava.
Yo: Reconnect the electricity – that’s to restart the cooling system?
Hirose: Yes. The accident was caused by the fact that the tsunami flooded the emergency generators and carried away their fuel tanks. If that isn’t fixed, there’s no way to recover from this accident.
Yo: Tepco [Tokyo Electric Power Company, owner/operator of the nuclear plants] says they expect to bring in a high voltage line this evening.
Hirose: Yes, there’s a little bit of hope there. But what’s worrisome is that a nuclear reactor is not like what the schematic pictures show (shows a graphic picture of a reactor, like those used on TV). This is just a cartoon. Here’s what it looks like underneath a reactor container (shows a photograph). This is the butt end of the reactor. Take a look. It’s a forest of switch levers and wires and pipes. On television these pseudo-scholars come on and give us simple explanations, but they know nothing, those college professors. Only the engineers know. This is where water has been poured in. This maze of pipes is enough to make you dizzy. Its structure is too wildly complex for us to understand. For a week now they have been pouring water through there. And it’s salt water, right? You pour salt water on a hot kiln and what do you think happens? You get salt. The salt will get into all these valves and cause them to freeze. They won’t move. This will be happening everywhere. So I can’t believe that it’s just a simple matter of you reconnecting the electricity and the water will begin to circulate. I think any engineer with a little imagination can understand this. You take a system as unbelievably complex as this and then actually dump water on it from a helicopter – maybe they have some idea of how this could work, but I can’t understand it.
Yo: It will take 1300 tons of water to fill the pools that contain the spent fuel rods in reactors 3 and 4. This morning 30 tons. Then the Self Defense Forces are to hose in another 30 tons from five trucks. That’s nowhere near enough, they have to keep it up. Is this squirting of water from hoses going to change the situation?
Hirose: In principle, it can’t. Because even when a reactor is in good shape, it requires constant control to keep the temperature down to where it is barely safe. Now it’s a complete mess inside, and when I think of the 50 remaining operators, it brings tears to my eyes. I assume they have been exposed to very large amounts of radiation, and that they have accepted that they face death by staying there. And how long can they last? I mean, physically. That’s what the situation has come to now. When I see these accounts on television, I want to tell them, “If that’s what you say, then go there and do it yourself!” Really, they talk this nonsense, trying to reassure everyone, trying to avoid panic. What we need now is a proper panic. Because the situation has come to the point where the danger is real.
If I were Prime Minister Kan, I would order them to do what the Soviet Union did when the Chernobyl reactor blew up, the sarcophagus solution, bury the whole thing under cement, put every cement company in Japan to work, and dump cement over it from the sky. Because you have to assume the worst case. Why? Because in Fukushima there is the Daiichi Plant with six reactors and the Daini Plant with four for a total of ten reactors. If even one of them develops the worst case, then the workers there must either evacuate the site or stay on and collapse. So if, for example, one of the reactors at Daiichi goes down, the other five are only a matter of time. We can’t know in what order they will go, but certainly all of them will go. And if that happens, Daini isn’t so far away, so probably the reactors there will also go down. Because I assume that workers will not be able to stay there.
I’m speaking of the worst case, but the probability is not low. This is the danger that the world is watching. Only in Japan is it being hidden. As you know, of the six reactors at Daiichi, four are in a crisis state. So even if at one everything goes well and water circulation is restored, the other three could still go down. Four are in crisis, and for all four to be 100 per cent repaired, I hate to say it, but I am pessimistic. If so, then to save the people, we have to think about some way to reduce the radiation leakage to the lowest level possible. Not by spraying water from hoses, like sprinkling water on a desert. We have to think of all six going down, and the possibility of that happening is not low. Everyone knows how long it takes a typhoon to pass over Japan; it generally takes about a week. That is, with a wind speed of two meters per second, it could take about five days for all of Japan to be covered with radiation. We’re not talking about distances of 20 kilometers or 30 kilometers or 100 kilometers. It means of course Tokyo, Osaka. That’s how fast a radioactive cloud could spread. Of course it would depend on the weather; we can’t know in advance how the radiation would be distributed. It would be nice if the wind would blow toward the sea, but it doesn’t always do that. Two days ago, on the 15th, it was blowing toward Tokyo. That’s how it is. . . .
Yo: Every day the local government is measuring the radioactivity. All the television stations are saying that while radiation is rising, it is still not high enough to be a danger to health. They compare it to a stomach x-ray, or if it goes up, to a CT scan. What is the truth of the matter?
Hirose: For example, yesterday. Around Fukushima Daiichi Station they measured 400 millisieverts – that’s per hour. With this measurement (Chief Cabinet Secretary) Edano admitted for the first time that there was a danger to health, but he didn’t explain what this means. All of the information media are at fault here I think. They are saying stupid things like, why, we are exposed to radiation all the time in our daily life, we get radiation from outer space. But that’s one millisievert per year. A year has 365 days, a day has 24 hours; multiply 365 by 24, you get 8760. Multiply the 400 millisieverts by that, you get 3,500,000 the normal dose. You call that safe? And what media have reported this? None. They compare it to a CT scan, which is over in an instant; that has nothing to do with it. The reason radioactivity can be measured is that radioactive material is escaping. What is dangerous is when that material enters your body and irradiates it from inside. These industry-mouthpiece scholars come on TV and what to they say? They say as you move away the radiation is reduced in inverse ratio to the square of the distance. I want to say the reverse. Internal irradiation happens when radioactive material is ingested into the body. What happens? Say there is a nuclear particle one meter away from you. You breathe it in, it sticks inside your body; the distance between you and it is now at the micron level. One meter is 1000 millimeters, one micron is one thousandth of a millimeter. That’s a thousand times a thousand squared. That’s the real meaning of “inverse ratio of the square of the distance.” Radiation exposure is increased by a factor of a trillion. Inhaling even the tiniest particle, that’s the danger.
Yo: So making comparisons with X-rays and CT scans has no meaning. Because you can breathe in radioactive material.
Hirose: That’s right. When it enters your body, there’s no telling where it will go. The biggest danger is women, especially pregnant women, and little children. Now they’re talking about iodine and cesium, but that’s only part of it, they’re not using the proper detection instruments. What they call monitoring means only measuring the amount of radiation in the air. Their instruments don’t eat. What they measure has no connection with the amount of radioactive material. . . .
Yo: So damage from radioactive rays and damage from radioactive material are not the same.
Hirose: If you ask, are any radioactive rays from the Fukushima Nuclear Station here in this studio, the answer will be no. But radioactive particles are carried here by the air. When the core begins to melt down, elements inside like iodine turn to gas. It rises to the top, so if there is any crevice it escapes outside.
Yo: Is there any way to detect this?
Hirose: I was told by a newspaper reporter that now Tepco is not in shape even to do regular monitoring. They just take an occasional measurement, and that becomes the basis of Edano’s statements. You have to take constant measurements, but they are not able to do that. And you need to investigate just what is escaping, and how much. That requires very sophisticated measuring instruments. You can’t do it just by keeping a monitoring post. It’s no good just to measure the level of radiation in the air. Whiz in by car, take a measurement, it’s high, it’s low – that’s not the point. We need to know what kind of radioactive materials are escaping, and where they are going – they don’t have a system in place for doing that now.
http://www.counterpunch.org/takashi03222011.html
Yo: Today many people saw water being sprayed on the reactors from the air and from the ground, but is this effective?
Hirose: . . . If you want to cool a reactor down with water, you have to circulate the water inside and carry the heat away, otherwise it has no meaning. So the only solution is to reconnect the electricity. Otherwise it’s like pouring water on lava.
Yo: Reconnect the electricity – that’s to restart the cooling system?
Hirose: Yes. The accident was caused by the fact that the tsunami flooded the emergency generators and carried away their fuel tanks. If that isn’t fixed, there’s no way to recover from this accident.
Yo: Tepco [Tokyo Electric Power Company, owner/operator of the nuclear plants] says they expect to bring in a high voltage line this evening.
Hirose: Yes, there’s a little bit of hope there. But what’s worrisome is that a nuclear reactor is not like what the schematic pictures show (shows a graphic picture of a reactor, like those used on TV). This is just a cartoon. Here’s what it looks like underneath a reactor container (shows a photograph). This is the butt end of the reactor. Take a look. It’s a forest of switch levers and wires and pipes. On television these pseudo-scholars come on and give us simple explanations, but they know nothing, those college professors. Only the engineers know. This is where water has been poured in. This maze of pipes is enough to make you dizzy. Its structure is too wildly complex for us to understand. For a week now they have been pouring water through there. And it’s salt water, right? You pour salt water on a hot kiln and what do you think happens? You get salt. The salt will get into all these valves and cause them to freeze. They won’t move. This will be happening everywhere. So I can’t believe that it’s just a simple matter of you reconnecting the electricity and the water will begin to circulate. I think any engineer with a little imagination can understand this. You take a system as unbelievably complex as this and then actually dump water on it from a helicopter – maybe they have some idea of how this could work, but I can’t understand it.
Yo: It will take 1300 tons of water to fill the pools that contain the spent fuel rods in reactors 3 and 4. This morning 30 tons. Then the Self Defense Forces are to hose in another 30 tons from five trucks. That’s nowhere near enough, they have to keep it up. Is this squirting of water from hoses going to change the situation?
Hirose: In principle, it can’t. Because even when a reactor is in good shape, it requires constant control to keep the temperature down to where it is barely safe. Now it’s a complete mess inside, and when I think of the 50 remaining operators, it brings tears to my eyes. I assume they have been exposed to very large amounts of radiation, and that they have accepted that they face death by staying there. And how long can they last? I mean, physically. That’s what the situation has come to now. When I see these accounts on television, I want to tell them, “If that’s what you say, then go there and do it yourself!” Really, they talk this nonsense, trying to reassure everyone, trying to avoid panic. What we need now is a proper panic. Because the situation has come to the point where the danger is real.
If I were Prime Minister Kan, I would order them to do what the Soviet Union did when the Chernobyl reactor blew up, the sarcophagus solution, bury the whole thing under cement, put every cement company in Japan to work, and dump cement over it from the sky. Because you have to assume the worst case. Why? Because in Fukushima there is the Daiichi Plant with six reactors and the Daini Plant with four for a total of ten reactors. If even one of them develops the worst case, then the workers there must either evacuate the site or stay on and collapse. So if, for example, one of the reactors at Daiichi goes down, the other five are only a matter of time. We can’t know in what order they will go, but certainly all of them will go. And if that happens, Daini isn’t so far away, so probably the reactors there will also go down. Because I assume that workers will not be able to stay there.
I’m speaking of the worst case, but the probability is not low. This is the danger that the world is watching. Only in Japan is it being hidden. As you know, of the six reactors at Daiichi, four are in a crisis state. So even if at one everything goes well and water circulation is restored, the other three could still go down. Four are in crisis, and for all four to be 100 per cent repaired, I hate to say it, but I am pessimistic. If so, then to save the people, we have to think about some way to reduce the radiation leakage to the lowest level possible. Not by spraying water from hoses, like sprinkling water on a desert. We have to think of all six going down, and the possibility of that happening is not low. Everyone knows how long it takes a typhoon to pass over Japan; it generally takes about a week. That is, with a wind speed of two meters per second, it could take about five days for all of Japan to be covered with radiation. We’re not talking about distances of 20 kilometers or 30 kilometers or 100 kilometers. It means of course Tokyo, Osaka. That’s how fast a radioactive cloud could spread. Of course it would depend on the weather; we can’t know in advance how the radiation would be distributed. It would be nice if the wind would blow toward the sea, but it doesn’t always do that. Two days ago, on the 15th, it was blowing toward Tokyo. That’s how it is. . . .
Yo: Every day the local government is measuring the radioactivity. All the television stations are saying that while radiation is rising, it is still not high enough to be a danger to health. They compare it to a stomach x-ray, or if it goes up, to a CT scan. What is the truth of the matter?
Hirose: For example, yesterday. Around Fukushima Daiichi Station they measured 400 millisieverts – that’s per hour. With this measurement (Chief Cabinet Secretary) Edano admitted for the first time that there was a danger to health, but he didn’t explain what this means. All of the information media are at fault here I think. They are saying stupid things like, why, we are exposed to radiation all the time in our daily life, we get radiation from outer space. But that’s one millisievert per year. A year has 365 days, a day has 24 hours; multiply 365 by 24, you get 8760. Multiply the 400 millisieverts by that, you get 3,500,000 the normal dose. You call that safe? And what media have reported this? None. They compare it to a CT scan, which is over in an instant; that has nothing to do with it. The reason radioactivity can be measured is that radioactive material is escaping. What is dangerous is when that material enters your body and irradiates it from inside. These industry-mouthpiece scholars come on TV and what to they say? They say as you move away the radiation is reduced in inverse ratio to the square of the distance. I want to say the reverse. Internal irradiation happens when radioactive material is ingested into the body. What happens? Say there is a nuclear particle one meter away from you. You breathe it in, it sticks inside your body; the distance between you and it is now at the micron level. One meter is 1000 millimeters, one micron is one thousandth of a millimeter. That’s a thousand times a thousand squared. That’s the real meaning of “inverse ratio of the square of the distance.” Radiation exposure is increased by a factor of a trillion. Inhaling even the tiniest particle, that’s the danger.
Yo: So making comparisons with X-rays and CT scans has no meaning. Because you can breathe in radioactive material.
Hirose: That’s right. When it enters your body, there’s no telling where it will go. The biggest danger is women, especially pregnant women, and little children. Now they’re talking about iodine and cesium, but that’s only part of it, they’re not using the proper detection instruments. What they call monitoring means only measuring the amount of radiation in the air. Their instruments don’t eat. What they measure has no connection with the amount of radioactive material. . . .
Yo: So damage from radioactive rays and damage from radioactive material are not the same.
Hirose: If you ask, are any radioactive rays from the Fukushima Nuclear Station here in this studio, the answer will be no. But radioactive particles are carried here by the air. When the core begins to melt down, elements inside like iodine turn to gas. It rises to the top, so if there is any crevice it escapes outside.
Yo: Is there any way to detect this?
Hirose: I was told by a newspaper reporter that now Tepco is not in shape even to do regular monitoring. They just take an occasional measurement, and that becomes the basis of Edano’s statements. You have to take constant measurements, but they are not able to do that. And you need to investigate just what is escaping, and how much. That requires very sophisticated measuring instruments. You can’t do it just by keeping a monitoring post. It’s no good just to measure the level of radiation in the air. Whiz in by car, take a measurement, it’s high, it’s low – that’s not the point. We need to know what kind of radioactive materials are escaping, and where they are going – they don’t have a system in place for doing that now.
http://www.counterpunch.org/takashi03222011.html
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Is Your Cell Phone Bugged?
How do you know if you are being bugged, surveilled, and tracked? By police, intelligence agencies, the military or the satanic network? It's easy
If you
are aware of how things really work,
not one of the THEM already,
have a dangerous spouse or ex who has it in for you,
are a target of a coven or grotto,
ever wrote a letter to an editor complaining about government,
ever visited a web site that reveals the truth of things on any level that matters,
are seeking freedom from slavery...
than you ARE BEING TRACKED AND SURVEILLED - COUNT ON IT!
Remember the golden rule: If there's any doubt, then there is no doubt.
If you
are aware of how things really work,
not one of the THEM already,
have a dangerous spouse or ex who has it in for you,
are a target of a coven or grotto,
ever wrote a letter to an editor complaining about government,
ever visited a web site that reveals the truth of things on any level that matters,
are seeking freedom from slavery...
than you ARE BEING TRACKED AND SURVEILLED - COUNT ON IT!
Remember the golden rule: If there's any doubt, then there is no doubt.
The Real Data and Facts on radiation and Fukushima
"The first 'type' of radioactive material is the uranium in the fuel rods," wrote Dr. Oehmen, "plus the intermediate radioactive elements that the uranium splits into, also inside the fuel rod (Cesium and Iodine). There is a second type of radioactive material created, outside the fuel rods. The big main difference up front: Those radioactive materials have a very short half-life, that means that they decay very fast and split into non-radioactive materials. By fast I mean seconds. So if these radioactive materials are released into the environment, yes, radioactivity was released, but no, it is not dangerous, at all. Why? By the time you spelled "R-A-D-I-O-N-U-C-L-I-D-E", they will be harmless, because they will have split up into non radioactive elements..."
It takes about five seconds to spell R-A-D-I-O-N-U-C-L-I-D-E and it takes about the same amount of time to read a chart (below) which shows the actual lifetimes and half-lives of radioisotopes that people need to be concerned about today.
Not only does Dr. Oehmen intentionally misinform people about the inherent design flaws and potential failures of nuclear reactors and subsystems, but he knowingly disinforms about the potential for serious health consequences and the radioactive contaminants that are typically released during a nuclear power accident. While millions of people in Japan are suffering the personal psychological terror of a possible nuclear holocaust, the fears and horrors of life and death from a natural disaster, starvation and thirst, and radioactive poisoning. Dr. Joseph Oehmen -- safe in Boston Massachusetts -- has been been boasting about his blog post -- equally popular with people who hate it and love it -- which spread like a virus on the Internet.
During nuclear fission, the uranium from the fuel rods splits into many radioactive fission products that can then escape during a nuclear power 'event'. These include dangerous Noble Gases (xenon and krypton); Hallogens (including iodines and bromines); Alkali Metals (including cesium 137); Alkaline earths (including barium 133 and strontium 90) and the elements Tellurium and Ruthenium. Some fissionable elements decay rapidly and are inconsequential during releases, but some decay into other, more deadly nuclides. The most dangerous nuclides have half-lives in days (I-131 = 8 days), years (Cs-137 = 30 years) or centuries (Pu-239 = 24,000 years). Half-life is the time it takes for one-half of the material to decay -- lest we forget that the other half is still present.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23764
Friday, March 18, 2011
Wikipedia and other sites are deleting detailed plant diagrams
Like this one below. They are trying to downplay the obvious, which is that the explosions blew away the cooling pools for the spent rods. Also, on the NHK Japanese channel, we noticed that the models they've been using all week have been altered for TV, showing far less damage or none at all on two of the reactors. When you match the new TV models with the pictures, they no longer look similar.
This is a deliberate obsfucation of the facts and the truth. Beware, pay attention, be vigilant to the truth.
This is a deliberate obsfucation of the facts and the truth. Beware, pay attention, be vigilant to the truth.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Direct Japanese feed, no MSM liars from the US here
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nhk-world-tv#utm_campaigne=synclickback&source=http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/nhk-world-livestream&medium=7497266
Monday, March 14, 2011
Japan Earthquake and Tsunami
Our hearts are pained and in prayer for all the nation of Japan and affected peoples.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Online sockpuppets
there is a leaked email that has gotten surprisingly little attention around here. It's the one where Aaron Barr discusses his intention to post at Daily Kos - presumably something negative about Anonymous, the hacking group. But that's not the email I'm talking about here.
As I also mentioned yesterday, in some of the emails, HBGary people are talking about creating "personas", what we would call sockpuppets. This is not new. PR firms have been using fake "people" to promote products and other things for a while now, both online and even in bars and coffee houses.
But for a defense contractor with ties to the federal government, Hunton & Williams, DOD, NSA, and the CIA - whose enemies are labor unions, progressive organizations, journalists, and progressive bloggers, a persona apparently goes far beyond creating a mere sockpuppet.
According to an embedded MS Word document found in one of the HBGary emails, it involves creating an army of sockpuppets, with sophisticated "persona management" software that allows a small team of only a few people to appear to be many, while keeping the personas from accidentally cross-contaminating each other. Then, to top it off, the team can actually automate some functions so one persona can appear to be an entire Brooks Brothers riot online.
Persona management entails not just the deconfliction of persona artifacts such as names, email addresses, landing pages, and associated content. It also requires providing the human actors technology that takes the decision process out of the loop when using a specific persona. For this purpose we custom developed either virtual machines or thumb drives for each persona. This allowed the human actor to open a virtual machine or thumb drive with an associated persona and have all the appropriate email accounts, associations, web pages, social media accounts, etc. pre-established and configured with visual cues to remind the actor which persona he/she is using so as not to accidentally cross-contaminate personas during use.
And all of this is for the purposes of infiltration, data mining, and (here's the one that really worries me) ganging up on bloggers, commenters and otherwise "real" people to smear enemies and distort the truth.
This is an excerpt from one of the Word Documents, which was sent as an attachment by Aaron Barr, CEO of HBGary's Federal subsidiary, to several of his colleagues to present to clients:
To build this capability we will create a set of personas on twitter, blogs, forums, buzz, and myspace under created names that fit the profile (satellitejockey, hack3rman, etc). These accounts are maintained and updated automatically through RSS feeds, retweets, and linking together social media commenting between platforms. With a pool of these accounts to choose from, once you have a real name persona you create a Facebook and LinkedIn account using the given name, lock those accounts down and link these accounts to a selected # of previously created social media accounts, automatically pre-aging the real accounts.
I don't know about you, but this concerns me greatly. It goes far beyond the mere ability for a government stooge, corporation or PR firm to hire people to post on sites like this one. They are talking about creating the illusion of consensus. And consensus is a powerful persuader. What has more effect, one guy saying BP is not at fault? Or 20 people saying it? For the weak minded, the number can make all the difference.
And another thing, this is just one little company of assholes. I can't believe there aren't others doing this already. From oil companies, political campaigns, PR firms, you name it. Public opinion means big bucks. And let's face it, what these guys are talking about is easy.
Just today I was listening to Stand Up with Pete Dominic on XM's POTUS channel. He was talking about the Wisconsin labor attack and how he had seen a lot of people email and contact the show in support of the Teachers there. Then he added a "but": "I've also seen a lot of anti-labor people on Twitter..."
Really? I thought. How do we know if those are real people? Twitter has to be the easiest thing to fake and to automate with retweets and 180 characrer max sentences. To the extent that the propaganda technique known as "Bandwagon" is an effective form of persuasion, which it definitely is, the ability for a few people to infiltrate a blog or social media site and appear to be many people, all taking one position in a debate, all agreeing, for example, that so and so is not credible, or a crook, is an incredibly powerful weapon.
How many times have you seen a diary get posted that reports some revelatory yet unfavorable tidbit about someone only to see a swarm of commenters arrive who hijack the thread, distract with a bunch of irrelevant nonsense, start throwing unsubstantiated accusations and ad hominem attacks to where before you know it, everyone's pretty much forgotten what the diary said in the first place.
Some times diaries deserve to be swarmed. But what if a diary is swarmed and it's really just one asshole working for a law firm that represents the oil company your diary was attacking?
I don't know about you, but it matters to me what fellow progressives think. I consider all views. And if there appears to be a consensus that some reporter isn't credible, for example, or some candidate for congress in another state can't be trusted, I won't base my entire judgment on it, but it carries some weight.
That's me. I believe there are many people though who will base their judgment on rumors and mob attacks. And for those people, a fake mob can be really effective.
I have no idea what to do about this problem, except just make sure everyone knows its possible, and so watches out for it.
-------------------------------------
full article below
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/16/945768/-UPDATED:-The-HB-Gary-Email-That-Should-Concern-Us-All
As I also mentioned yesterday, in some of the emails, HBGary people are talking about creating "personas", what we would call sockpuppets. This is not new. PR firms have been using fake "people" to promote products and other things for a while now, both online and even in bars and coffee houses.
But for a defense contractor with ties to the federal government, Hunton & Williams, DOD, NSA, and the CIA - whose enemies are labor unions, progressive organizations, journalists, and progressive bloggers, a persona apparently goes far beyond creating a mere sockpuppet.
According to an embedded MS Word document found in one of the HBGary emails, it involves creating an army of sockpuppets, with sophisticated "persona management" software that allows a small team of only a few people to appear to be many, while keeping the personas from accidentally cross-contaminating each other. Then, to top it off, the team can actually automate some functions so one persona can appear to be an entire Brooks Brothers riot online.
Persona management entails not just the deconfliction of persona artifacts such as names, email addresses, landing pages, and associated content. It also requires providing the human actors technology that takes the decision process out of the loop when using a specific persona. For this purpose we custom developed either virtual machines or thumb drives for each persona. This allowed the human actor to open a virtual machine or thumb drive with an associated persona and have all the appropriate email accounts, associations, web pages, social media accounts, etc. pre-established and configured with visual cues to remind the actor which persona he/she is using so as not to accidentally cross-contaminate personas during use.
And all of this is for the purposes of infiltration, data mining, and (here's the one that really worries me) ganging up on bloggers, commenters and otherwise "real" people to smear enemies and distort the truth.
This is an excerpt from one of the Word Documents, which was sent as an attachment by Aaron Barr, CEO of HBGary's Federal subsidiary, to several of his colleagues to present to clients:
To build this capability we will create a set of personas on twitter, blogs, forums, buzz, and myspace under created names that fit the profile (satellitejockey, hack3rman, etc). These accounts are maintained and updated automatically through RSS feeds, retweets, and linking together social media commenting between platforms. With a pool of these accounts to choose from, once you have a real name persona you create a Facebook and LinkedIn account using the given name, lock those accounts down and link these accounts to a selected # of previously created social media accounts, automatically pre-aging the real accounts.
I don't know about you, but this concerns me greatly. It goes far beyond the mere ability for a government stooge, corporation or PR firm to hire people to post on sites like this one. They are talking about creating the illusion of consensus. And consensus is a powerful persuader. What has more effect, one guy saying BP is not at fault? Or 20 people saying it? For the weak minded, the number can make all the difference.
And another thing, this is just one little company of assholes. I can't believe there aren't others doing this already. From oil companies, political campaigns, PR firms, you name it. Public opinion means big bucks. And let's face it, what these guys are talking about is easy.
Just today I was listening to Stand Up with Pete Dominic on XM's POTUS channel. He was talking about the Wisconsin labor attack and how he had seen a lot of people email and contact the show in support of the Teachers there. Then he added a "but": "I've also seen a lot of anti-labor people on Twitter..."
Really? I thought. How do we know if those are real people? Twitter has to be the easiest thing to fake and to automate with retweets and 180 characrer max sentences. To the extent that the propaganda technique known as "Bandwagon" is an effective form of persuasion, which it definitely is, the ability for a few people to infiltrate a blog or social media site and appear to be many people, all taking one position in a debate, all agreeing, for example, that so and so is not credible, or a crook, is an incredibly powerful weapon.
How many times have you seen a diary get posted that reports some revelatory yet unfavorable tidbit about someone only to see a swarm of commenters arrive who hijack the thread, distract with a bunch of irrelevant nonsense, start throwing unsubstantiated accusations and ad hominem attacks to where before you know it, everyone's pretty much forgotten what the diary said in the first place.
Some times diaries deserve to be swarmed. But what if a diary is swarmed and it's really just one asshole working for a law firm that represents the oil company your diary was attacking?
I don't know about you, but it matters to me what fellow progressives think. I consider all views. And if there appears to be a consensus that some reporter isn't credible, for example, or some candidate for congress in another state can't be trusted, I won't base my entire judgment on it, but it carries some weight.
That's me. I believe there are many people though who will base their judgment on rumors and mob attacks. And for those people, a fake mob can be really effective.
I have no idea what to do about this problem, except just make sure everyone knows its possible, and so watches out for it.
-------------------------------------
full article below
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/16/945768/-UPDATED:-The-HB-Gary-Email-That-Should-Concern-Us-All
Intelligence and Police tool
The Micro Air Vehicle, or MAV for short, is a small radio controlled drone aircraft equipped with a portable camera system.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Wells Fargo Bank Fraud: Cashes Check, Closes Account, Steals Student's $10,000
PETALUMA, Calif. (KGO) -- The common banking practice of making a deposit turned into a $10,000 nightmare for a Bay Area man and his daughter. Their money disappeared.
Myron Hinrich of Petaluma helps support his daughter, Anne, while she studies film-making at USC.
"She's struggling in graduate school; she needed to make a rent payment," Hinrich said.
Anne was low on cash so Hinrich deposited a $10,000 check into Anne's account at Wells Fargo Bank. However, what happened after that came as a complete shock.
"They said the check was fraudulent, they canceled the account and they didn't want to see her again," Hinrich said.
Wells Fargo refused to give Anne the $10,000. Instead, the bank abruptly closed her account and told her to go away. The only explanation? The bank claimed the check was a fraud.
"I didn't know what to think, I didn't' know why they would think it's fraudulent," Hinrich said.
it made no sense. The check had already been cashed by Wells Fargo the day it was written and the money had been taken out of Hinrich's account.
"It's the strangest thing I've ever seen, you couldn't find anybody to talk to," Hinrich said.
Wells Fargo would not even speak with Hinrich about what happened, citing privacy laws. The bank also would not speak with Anne, saying her account no longer existed.
"It was a Catch 22; I can't get the money because I don't have an account with them and my daughter can't get the money because they closed her account," Hinrich said.
The way Hinrich saw it, his money had been stolen. So he reported it to the federal comptroller of currency, which makes sure banks obey the law.
"That didn't work either; they accepted Wells Fargo's letter saying I didn't have an account with them therefore they couldn't help me," Hinrich said.
The federal agency closed the case. No one would listen.
"This is $10,000 we're talking here, so that's when I had the idea to call 7 On Your Side," Hinrich said.
7 On Your Side showed all the documents to Wells Fargo and requested the bank deliver a check to Hinrich's daughter in Los Angeles right away.
"She went into the bank and said she wasn't going to leave until she had the $10,000," Hinrich said.
Myron says his daughter sat in the bank in Los Angeles for two hours until finally the check was in her hand.
Wells Fargo says it only needed a letter of indemnity from Westamerica Bank stating the check was valid. Once Hinrich provided that letter, the bank returned the money to the family.
Wells Fargo did not explain why the check was deemed fraudulent in the first place and still cannot explain how it could take $10,000 out of Hinrich's account nearly a year ago, yet still question the validity of the check. The bank claimed it had been holding the money in a separate account all this time, which was news to Hinrich.
The comptroller of the currency declined to comment about its role in closing the case.
Source: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/7_on_your_side&id=7996116
Myron Hinrich of Petaluma helps support his daughter, Anne, while she studies film-making at USC.
"She's struggling in graduate school; she needed to make a rent payment," Hinrich said.
Anne was low on cash so Hinrich deposited a $10,000 check into Anne's account at Wells Fargo Bank. However, what happened after that came as a complete shock.
"They said the check was fraudulent, they canceled the account and they didn't want to see her again," Hinrich said.
Wells Fargo refused to give Anne the $10,000. Instead, the bank abruptly closed her account and told her to go away. The only explanation? The bank claimed the check was a fraud.
"I didn't know what to think, I didn't' know why they would think it's fraudulent," Hinrich said.
it made no sense. The check had already been cashed by Wells Fargo the day it was written and the money had been taken out of Hinrich's account.
"It's the strangest thing I've ever seen, you couldn't find anybody to talk to," Hinrich said.
Wells Fargo would not even speak with Hinrich about what happened, citing privacy laws. The bank also would not speak with Anne, saying her account no longer existed.
"It was a Catch 22; I can't get the money because I don't have an account with them and my daughter can't get the money because they closed her account," Hinrich said.
The way Hinrich saw it, his money had been stolen. So he reported it to the federal comptroller of currency, which makes sure banks obey the law.
"That didn't work either; they accepted Wells Fargo's letter saying I didn't have an account with them therefore they couldn't help me," Hinrich said.
The federal agency closed the case. No one would listen.
"This is $10,000 we're talking here, so that's when I had the idea to call 7 On Your Side," Hinrich said.
7 On Your Side showed all the documents to Wells Fargo and requested the bank deliver a check to Hinrich's daughter in Los Angeles right away.
"She went into the bank and said she wasn't going to leave until she had the $10,000," Hinrich said.
Myron says his daughter sat in the bank in Los Angeles for two hours until finally the check was in her hand.
Wells Fargo says it only needed a letter of indemnity from Westamerica Bank stating the check was valid. Once Hinrich provided that letter, the bank returned the money to the family.
Wells Fargo did not explain why the check was deemed fraudulent in the first place and still cannot explain how it could take $10,000 out of Hinrich's account nearly a year ago, yet still question the validity of the check. The bank claimed it had been holding the money in a separate account all this time, which was news to Hinrich.
The comptroller of the currency declined to comment about its role in closing the case.
Source: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/7_on_your_side&id=7996116
Star Eyewitness who named Queen of England in Abduction of Aboriginal Children Dies suddenly!
http://paganmedia.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/star-eyewitness-who-named-queen-of-england-in-abduction-of-aboriginal-children-dies-suddenly/
Saturday, March 5, 2011
prominent radio hosts use scripted actors as phone in callers!
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/hmm-prominent-conservative-radio-host
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