This is a historic moment for our planet to hear them speak. The Hopi Elder have come forward with a message to the world in response to the tsunami and earthquake disaster in Japan.
They give humanity a simple message for our future and how to overcome these difficult times.
Hopi original letter:
The Hopi are praying the people of Japan and for the people around the world as we face crisis in our world out of balance.
We are all in a time of great change upon mother earth and these events have been foretold by our Elders.
Through our Prophecies and our Ceremonies the sacred land of this earth is now crying. And our children are looking to Hopi to balance life for their future.
Our Elders have given us guidance for how to move through these changes. Humanity is now choosing the path upon which all life will follow and we have known this time would
come.
As Hopi, we ask you to join us in prayer to balance mother earth and all life. We believe that, through our prayers and that if we pray with good hearts as told by our Elders, we can lessen the impact of these events.
We as the Hopi join our prayers with those of the Dalai Lama along with people from around the world to send healing to Japan, the earth and all life.
In this time of change, we ask all the people of the world to return to a more balanced way of life.
Hopi say there is a path to follow that allows for us to move through this time of change.
Walk gently upon our earth with respect for her and all life.
A return to connecting our heart with the heart of the path to the future.
Join your hearts to Hopi in honoring our Mother Earth by planting gardens, respecting our Sacred life giving waters and all life for future generations of our children.
"Kwak wha, Lolmani"
(Thank you, may there be good things in the future.)
Kikmongwi (Village Chief)
Lee Wayne Lomayestewa of the Village of Sungopavi
Hopi Nation
Contact: traditionalhopi@gmail.com
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Rolling Stone Why is the Fed Bailing Out Qaddafi?
Barack Obama recently issued an executive order imposing a wave of sanctions against Libya, not only freezing Libyan assets, but barring Americans from having business dealings with Libyan banks.
So raise your hand if you knew that the United States has been extending billions of dollars in aid to Qaddafi and to the Central Bank of Libya, through a Libyan-owned subsidiary bank operating out of Bahrain. And raise your hand if you knew that, just a week or so after Obama’s executive order, the U.S. Treasury Department quietly issued an order exempting this and other Libyan-owned banks to continue operating without sanction.
I came across the curious case of the Arab Banking Corporation, better known as ABC, while researching a story about the results of the audit of the Federal Reserve. That story, which will be coming out in Rolling Stone in two weeks, will examine in detail some of the many lunacies uncovered by Senate investigators amid the recently-released list of bailout and emergency aid recipients – a list that includes many extremely shocking names, from foreign industrial competitors to hedge funds in tax-haven nations to various Wall Street figures of note (and some of their relatives). You will want to see this amazing list when it comes out, so please make sure to check the newsstands in two weeks’ time.
This list became public as a result of an amendment added to the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill that was sponsored by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The amendment forced the Federal Reserve to open its books for the first time and make public the names of those individuals and corporations who received emergency loans and bailout monies during the roughly two year period between the crash of 2008 and the passage of the Dodd-Frank bill.
As Bernie’s staff was going through this list, it found, among other things, some $26 billion in extremely cheap loans (as low as one quarter of one percent!) extended to this ABC bank over a period of years, beginning in December of 2007 and continuing through as recently as February of 2010. The senator sent a letter to Ben Bernanke over the winter demanding more information about this loan (among others) but the response he got was completely unhelpful.
When I first started working on this story, one of Sanders’s aides was careful to point out the ABC loans. Later, I took a closer look at the company and found that it was 59% owned by the Central Bank of Libya, which I found very odd, even by the generally insane standards of the bailout era. Why, I wondered, would the Federal Reserve be giving Muammar Qaddafi $26 billion in near-zero interest loans? Exactly how does that address America’s financial problems? What bailout plan could that possibly be part of?
It gets weirder from there. Sanders’s office subsequently found out that ABC is not only exempt from Obama’s sanctions, it has two functioning branches here in New York City. In a letter he sent yesterday evening to Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency chief John Walsh (the banking regulator with purview over the New York branches), Sanders put it this way:
Why would the U.S. government allow a bank that is predominantly owned by the Central Bank of Libya – an institution on which the U.S. has imposed strict economic sanctions – to operate two banking branches within our own borders?
Neither the Fed nor Treasury so far has offered explanations for these loans; the Treasury has so far only explained why ABC was not subject to sanctions and pointed to the March 4th order when I contacted them.
The ABC loans are just one example of the Fed’s bailout madness. Again, there are 21,000 transactions on the Fed’s list of released names, and “every one of these... is outrageous,” as one Sanders aide put it. You will be shocked, for sure, to find out who else is on that list. We’ll have a lot more on those other loans in the next issue of Rolling Stone.
Source
So raise your hand if you knew that the United States has been extending billions of dollars in aid to Qaddafi and to the Central Bank of Libya, through a Libyan-owned subsidiary bank operating out of Bahrain. And raise your hand if you knew that, just a week or so after Obama’s executive order, the U.S. Treasury Department quietly issued an order exempting this and other Libyan-owned banks to continue operating without sanction.
I came across the curious case of the Arab Banking Corporation, better known as ABC, while researching a story about the results of the audit of the Federal Reserve. That story, which will be coming out in Rolling Stone in two weeks, will examine in detail some of the many lunacies uncovered by Senate investigators amid the recently-released list of bailout and emergency aid recipients – a list that includes many extremely shocking names, from foreign industrial competitors to hedge funds in tax-haven nations to various Wall Street figures of note (and some of their relatives). You will want to see this amazing list when it comes out, so please make sure to check the newsstands in two weeks’ time.
This list became public as a result of an amendment added to the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill that was sponsored by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The amendment forced the Federal Reserve to open its books for the first time and make public the names of those individuals and corporations who received emergency loans and bailout monies during the roughly two year period between the crash of 2008 and the passage of the Dodd-Frank bill.
As Bernie’s staff was going through this list, it found, among other things, some $26 billion in extremely cheap loans (as low as one quarter of one percent!) extended to this ABC bank over a period of years, beginning in December of 2007 and continuing through as recently as February of 2010. The senator sent a letter to Ben Bernanke over the winter demanding more information about this loan (among others) but the response he got was completely unhelpful.
When I first started working on this story, one of Sanders’s aides was careful to point out the ABC loans. Later, I took a closer look at the company and found that it was 59% owned by the Central Bank of Libya, which I found very odd, even by the generally insane standards of the bailout era. Why, I wondered, would the Federal Reserve be giving Muammar Qaddafi $26 billion in near-zero interest loans? Exactly how does that address America’s financial problems? What bailout plan could that possibly be part of?
It gets weirder from there. Sanders’s office subsequently found out that ABC is not only exempt from Obama’s sanctions, it has two functioning branches here in New York City. In a letter he sent yesterday evening to Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency chief John Walsh (the banking regulator with purview over the New York branches), Sanders put it this way:
Why would the U.S. government allow a bank that is predominantly owned by the Central Bank of Libya – an institution on which the U.S. has imposed strict economic sanctions – to operate two banking branches within our own borders?
Neither the Fed nor Treasury so far has offered explanations for these loans; the Treasury has so far only explained why ABC was not subject to sanctions and pointed to the March 4th order when I contacted them.
The ABC loans are just one example of the Fed’s bailout madness. Again, there are 21,000 transactions on the Fed’s list of released names, and “every one of these... is outrageous,” as one Sanders aide put it. You will be shocked, for sure, to find out who else is on that list. We’ll have a lot more on those other loans in the next issue of Rolling Stone.
Koussa UK, US double agent
Nothing of a surprise here
Former Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa, who defected to Britain last week was acting as a double agent for the MI6 and the CIA for a decade, it was revealed.
Libya's former intelligence chief, who is also known as 'torturer-in-chief', has been offered asylum in the UK in return for his help to topple Muammar Qaddafi and his regime.
Koussa had met, John Scarlett, the former head of the UK foreign intelligence agency MI6 in 2001 in London, where he promised to help track down Al-Qaeda activities in North Africa.
The former minister also provided the ground for a British agent to carry out espionage act inside Tripoli.
The UK services and ministry of defense interrogation teams were questioning Koussa at a house in Surrey, according to reports.
He had been made a secret offer to seek refuge in Britain while he was still in Tripoli, but any promise of special protection has provoked anger among those who are seeking Koussa's prosecution as a war criminal.
“This man should not be granted asylum or any other special treatment; the only proper outcome is to bring him to justice”, said MP Ben Wallace, parliamentary aide to Justice Secretary Ken Clarke.
“Britain needs to make up its mind quickly. There will be no shortage of courts that will readily seek his extradition. The last thing the UK wants is for Koussa to languish, at taxpayers' expense, in legal no-man's-land”, said Wallace.
Koussa has also been linked with the Lockerbie bombing and the killing of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan Embassy in London, in the first few days after the UN-sanctioned attacks on Qaddafi's military machine on March 19.
Koussa fled Tripoli last Monday night after telling colleagues that he was seeking medical help in Tunisia.
The convoy of official vehicles crossed the Tunisian border and went on to Tunis's Djerba-Zaris airport. From there, MI6 officers helped charter a private Gulfstream G200 from TAG Aviation to take him to Farnborough, Hampshire in the UK.
Source
Former Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa, who defected to Britain last week was acting as a double agent for the MI6 and the CIA for a decade, it was revealed.
Libya's former intelligence chief, who is also known as 'torturer-in-chief', has been offered asylum in the UK in return for his help to topple Muammar Qaddafi and his regime.
Koussa had met, John Scarlett, the former head of the UK foreign intelligence agency MI6 in 2001 in London, where he promised to help track down Al-Qaeda activities in North Africa.
The former minister also provided the ground for a British agent to carry out espionage act inside Tripoli.
The UK services and ministry of defense interrogation teams were questioning Koussa at a house in Surrey, according to reports.
He had been made a secret offer to seek refuge in Britain while he was still in Tripoli, but any promise of special protection has provoked anger among those who are seeking Koussa's prosecution as a war criminal.
“This man should not be granted asylum or any other special treatment; the only proper outcome is to bring him to justice”, said MP Ben Wallace, parliamentary aide to Justice Secretary Ken Clarke.
“Britain needs to make up its mind quickly. There will be no shortage of courts that will readily seek his extradition. The last thing the UK wants is for Koussa to languish, at taxpayers' expense, in legal no-man's-land”, said Wallace.
Koussa has also been linked with the Lockerbie bombing and the killing of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan Embassy in London, in the first few days after the UN-sanctioned attacks on Qaddafi's military machine on March 19.
Koussa fled Tripoli last Monday night after telling colleagues that he was seeking medical help in Tunisia.
The convoy of official vehicles crossed the Tunisian border and went on to Tunis's Djerba-Zaris airport. From there, MI6 officers helped charter a private Gulfstream G200 from TAG Aviation to take him to Farnborough, Hampshire in the UK.
Sunday, April 03, 2011
"Prepare For Serious Inflation"
Wal-Mart US CEO To America
To those who think that buying food in the corner deli is becoming a luxury, we have five words: you ain't seen nuthin' yet. U.S. consumers face "serious" inflation in the months ahead for clothing, food and other products, the head of Wal-Mart's U.S. operations warned Wednesday talking to USA Today [1]. And if Wal-Mart which is at the very bottom of commoditized consumer retail, and at the very peak of avoiding reexporting of US inflation by way of China is concerned, it may be time to panic, or at least cancel those plane tickets to Zimbabwe, which is soon coming to us.
More at Source
To those who think that buying food in the corner deli is becoming a luxury, we have five words: you ain't seen nuthin' yet. U.S. consumers face "serious" inflation in the months ahead for clothing, food and other products, the head of Wal-Mart's U.S. operations warned Wednesday talking to USA Today [1]. And if Wal-Mart which is at the very bottom of commoditized consumer retail, and at the very peak of avoiding reexporting of US inflation by way of China is concerned, it may be time to panic, or at least cancel those plane tickets to Zimbabwe, which is soon coming to us.
Nasa hacker Gary McKinnon
Nasa hacker Gary McKinnon is undergoing 'psychological torture' over an impasse surrounding extradition proceedings to the US, according to an Ulster Unionist peer.
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass introduced a debate in the House of Lords on Wednesday around the predicament of McKinnon, who is currently caught in legal limbo while his lawyers and the Home Office discuss a medical evaluation. McKinnon has already been evaluated by a number of autism experts for risk of suicide should he be extradited.
More at Source
This is unconfirmed:
A last-ditch appeal to prevent a computer hacker from being extradited
to the United States has been dismissed by the Home Secretary.
Gary McKinnon and his family were told yesterday that Alan Johnson is
to allow the extradition to go ahead after refusing to block it on
medical grounds.
Mr McKinnon, who has Asperger's syndrome, is accused by the US
authorities of breaking into military and Nasa computers. He has
admitted hacking but maintains he was looking only for evidence of
UFOs
He was told in a letter from the Home Secretary that the extradition
would now "proceed forthwith" after finding that there was "nothing
incompatible" between extradition and Mr McKinnon's human rights.
The family said last night that Mr McKinnon, who could be sentenced to
up to 60 years in prison in the US, was "at risk of suicide" after being
told there will be no 11th hour reprieve. His mother, Janis Sharp, was
"extremely worried" about her son's mental state and said the
Government and Mr Johnson should "hang their heads in shame" for
caving in to American pressure.
She said: "This is a cruel and miserable decision. To force a peaceful,
vulnerable, misguided UFO fanatic like Gary thousands of miles away
from his much-needed support network is barbaric. If the severity of
Gary's medical condition isn't sufficient to prevent his extradition, I
can't imagine what is."
She added: "This government is terrified of speaking up to America, and
now they are allowing vulnerable people to be pursued for non-violent
crime when they should be going after terrorists. Why are they doing
this?"
Karen Todner, the hacker's solicitor, said there was still hope. "It's a
devastating blow but we are not going to give up. We are going to issue
judicial review proceedings. We normally have three months to do this
but have now been given seven days to issue."
In July Mr McKinnon went to the High Court in an attempt to get the
extradition order overturned but was told being sent for trial in the US
was "a lawful and proportionate response" to his actions. A month ago
he was refused permission to take his case to the Supreme Court when
judges decided he had "no real prospect" of success.
The case has highlighted concerns about the Extradition Act 2003
which critics maintain erodes the rights of individuals in Britain without
a similar concession being given in the US. They argue that Britons can
be extradited without any assessment of the evidence against them and
on cases so weak that they would never reach court at home.
The US authorities only have to produce an arrest warrant to show that
the person is wanted. In contrast, if British prosecutors want to
extradite someone from the US they have to demonstrate likely guilt.
The Home Secretary has been given assurances by the US authorities
that Mr McKinnon's medical needs will be met. Mr Johnson said he had
considered carefully the case but rejected it. "I am clear that the
information is not materially different from that placed before the High
Court earlier this year and does not demonstrate that sending Mr
McKinnon to the United States would breach his human rights," he said.
"It is also clear from the proceedings to date that Mr McKinnon will not,
if convicted, serve any of his sentence in a supermax prison. Finally,
should Mr McKinnon be extradited, charged and convicted in the US
and seek repatriation to the UK to serve a custodial sentence, the
Government will of course progress his application at the very earliest
opportunity."
Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, described
the extradition treaty as unfair and Mr Johnson's decision as
"shameful".
Mr McKinnon is said by the US authorities to have been responsible for
"the biggest military hack of all time". He is said to have caused
$700,000 worth of damage and forced the US Army's entire network to
be shut down for 24 hours.
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass introduced a debate in the House of Lords on Wednesday around the predicament of McKinnon, who is currently caught in legal limbo while his lawyers and the Home Office discuss a medical evaluation. McKinnon has already been evaluated by a number of autism experts for risk of suicide should he be extradited.
This is unconfirmed:
A last-ditch appeal to prevent a computer hacker from being extradited
to the United States has been dismissed by the Home Secretary.
Gary McKinnon and his family were told yesterday that Alan Johnson is
to allow the extradition to go ahead after refusing to block it on
medical grounds.
Mr McKinnon, who has Asperger's syndrome, is accused by the US
authorities of breaking into military and Nasa computers. He has
admitted hacking but maintains he was looking only for evidence of
UFOs
He was told in a letter from the Home Secretary that the extradition
would now "proceed forthwith" after finding that there was "nothing
incompatible" between extradition and Mr McKinnon's human rights.
The family said last night that Mr McKinnon, who could be sentenced to
up to 60 years in prison in the US, was "at risk of suicide" after being
told there will be no 11th hour reprieve. His mother, Janis Sharp, was
"extremely worried" about her son's mental state and said the
Government and Mr Johnson should "hang their heads in shame" for
caving in to American pressure.
She said: "This is a cruel and miserable decision. To force a peaceful,
vulnerable, misguided UFO fanatic like Gary thousands of miles away
from his much-needed support network is barbaric. If the severity of
Gary's medical condition isn't sufficient to prevent his extradition, I
can't imagine what is."
She added: "This government is terrified of speaking up to America, and
now they are allowing vulnerable people to be pursued for non-violent
crime when they should be going after terrorists. Why are they doing
this?"
Karen Todner, the hacker's solicitor, said there was still hope. "It's a
devastating blow but we are not going to give up. We are going to issue
judicial review proceedings. We normally have three months to do this
but have now been given seven days to issue."
In July Mr McKinnon went to the High Court in an attempt to get the
extradition order overturned but was told being sent for trial in the US
was "a lawful and proportionate response" to his actions. A month ago
he was refused permission to take his case to the Supreme Court when
judges decided he had "no real prospect" of success.
The case has highlighted concerns about the Extradition Act 2003
which critics maintain erodes the rights of individuals in Britain without
a similar concession being given in the US. They argue that Britons can
be extradited without any assessment of the evidence against them and
on cases so weak that they would never reach court at home.
The US authorities only have to produce an arrest warrant to show that
the person is wanted. In contrast, if British prosecutors want to
extradite someone from the US they have to demonstrate likely guilt.
The Home Secretary has been given assurances by the US authorities
that Mr McKinnon's medical needs will be met. Mr Johnson said he had
considered carefully the case but rejected it. "I am clear that the
information is not materially different from that placed before the High
Court earlier this year and does not demonstrate that sending Mr
McKinnon to the United States would breach his human rights," he said.
"It is also clear from the proceedings to date that Mr McKinnon will not,
if convicted, serve any of his sentence in a supermax prison. Finally,
should Mr McKinnon be extradited, charged and convicted in the US
and seek repatriation to the UK to serve a custodial sentence, the
Government will of course progress his application at the very earliest
opportunity."
Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, described
the extradition treaty as unfair and Mr Johnson's decision as
"shameful".
Mr McKinnon is said by the US authorities to have been responsible for
"the biggest military hack of all time". He is said to have caused
$700,000 worth of damage and forced the US Army's entire network to
be shut down for 24 hours.
100-year battle' at Fukushima
A nuclear expert has warned that it might be 100 years before melting fuel rods can be safely removed from Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant.
The warning came as levels of radioactive iodine flushed into the sea near the plant spiked to a new high and the Wall Street Journal said it had obtained disaster response blueprints which said the plant's operators were woefully unprepared for the scale of the disaster.
Water is still being poured into the damaged reactors to cool melting fuel rods.
But one expert says the radiation leaks will be ongoing and it could take 50 to 100 years before the nuclear fuel rods have completely cooled and been removed.
"As the water leaks out, you keep on pouring water in, so this leak will go on for ever," said Dr John Price, a former member of the Safety Policy Unit at the UK's National Nuclear Corporation.
"There has to be some way of dealing with it. The water is connecting in tunnels and concrete-lined pits at the moment and the question is whether they can pump it back.
"The final thing is that the reactors will have to be closed and the fuel removed, and that is 50 to 100 years away.
"It means that the workers and the site will have to be intensely controlled for a very long period of time."
But Laurence Williams, Professor of Nuclear Safety at England's University of Central Lancashire and the former head nuclear regulator for the UK, is relatively comfortable with the situation.
"I have been monitoring it for the last couple of weeks and [the] three reactors seem to be more or less unchanged from initially when they got into the seawater flowing into them," he said.
"We don't know exactly the state of the fuel in those reactors but looking at the data, the pressures and temperatures look fairly stable over the last couple of weeks.
"My view is that as there hasn't been any sort of major catastrophic release of radioactivity, if they can continue to get the fresh water into the reactors and cool them, the decay heat is now fairly stabilising.
"It will take some time before it disappears but so far, so good. But it will take some time to bring under control."
Both experts agree capping the damaged reactors with concrete is not an option.
Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal says it has obtained disaster-readiness plans which show the facility only had one satellite phone and a single stretcher in case of an accident.
The blueprints also provided no detail about the possibility of using firefighters from Tokyo or national troops - both of which have been part of the response to the Fukushima crisis - to deal with any disaster.
Levels of radioactive iodine-131 in the Pacific off the plant have been recorded at a new high of 4,385 times the legal limit.
In 2002, the plant's operator TEPCO admitted to falsifying safety reports, leading to all of its 17 boiling water reactors being shut down for inspection.
TEPCO has already vowed to dismantle the four reactors at the centre of the world's worst atomic accident in 25 years, but now Japanese prime minister Naoto Kan says the Fukushima plant must be scrapped.
Source
The warning came as levels of radioactive iodine flushed into the sea near the plant spiked to a new high and the Wall Street Journal said it had obtained disaster response blueprints which said the plant's operators were woefully unprepared for the scale of the disaster.
Water is still being poured into the damaged reactors to cool melting fuel rods.
But one expert says the radiation leaks will be ongoing and it could take 50 to 100 years before the nuclear fuel rods have completely cooled and been removed.
"As the water leaks out, you keep on pouring water in, so this leak will go on for ever," said Dr John Price, a former member of the Safety Policy Unit at the UK's National Nuclear Corporation.
"There has to be some way of dealing with it. The water is connecting in tunnels and concrete-lined pits at the moment and the question is whether they can pump it back.
"The final thing is that the reactors will have to be closed and the fuel removed, and that is 50 to 100 years away.
"It means that the workers and the site will have to be intensely controlled for a very long period of time."
But Laurence Williams, Professor of Nuclear Safety at England's University of Central Lancashire and the former head nuclear regulator for the UK, is relatively comfortable with the situation.
"I have been monitoring it for the last couple of weeks and [the] three reactors seem to be more or less unchanged from initially when they got into the seawater flowing into them," he said.
"We don't know exactly the state of the fuel in those reactors but looking at the data, the pressures and temperatures look fairly stable over the last couple of weeks.
"My view is that as there hasn't been any sort of major catastrophic release of radioactivity, if they can continue to get the fresh water into the reactors and cool them, the decay heat is now fairly stabilising.
"It will take some time before it disappears but so far, so good. But it will take some time to bring under control."
Both experts agree capping the damaged reactors with concrete is not an option.
Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal says it has obtained disaster-readiness plans which show the facility only had one satellite phone and a single stretcher in case of an accident.
The blueprints also provided no detail about the possibility of using firefighters from Tokyo or national troops - both of which have been part of the response to the Fukushima crisis - to deal with any disaster.
Levels of radioactive iodine-131 in the Pacific off the plant have been recorded at a new high of 4,385 times the legal limit.
In 2002, the plant's operator TEPCO admitted to falsifying safety reports, leading to all of its 17 boiling water reactors being shut down for inspection.
TEPCO has already vowed to dismantle the four reactors at the centre of the world's worst atomic accident in 25 years, but now Japanese prime minister Naoto Kan says the Fukushima plant must be scrapped.
Friday, April 01, 2011
Japan Full meltdown in full swing?
Japan maximum nuclear alert
In Japan, radiation levels in the seawater near the Fukushima plant continue to rise. They're now more than 3.5 thousand times higher than normal. Radioactive material has also been detected in soil at the facility. Japan's government described the situation as serious and unpredictable. Workers have been unsuccessfully trying to restore the plant's cooling system, in what is now the worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl. There's been some debate over whether there are any similarities between the two events. RT talks to Professor Christopher Busby, of the European Committee on Radiation Risks
In Japan, radiation levels in the seawater near the Fukushima plant continue to rise. They're now more than 3.5 thousand times higher than normal. Radioactive material has also been detected in soil at the facility. Japan's government described the situation as serious and unpredictable. Workers have been unsuccessfully trying to restore the plant's cooling system, in what is now the worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl. There's been some debate over whether there are any similarities between the two events. RT talks to Professor Christopher Busby, of the European Committee on Radiation Risks
Radiation 10,000 Times Government Standard
Published March 31, 2011 | Associated Press
FUKUSHIMA, Japan -- Officials with the company that operates Japan's tsunami-stricken nuclear plant say radioactive contamination in groundwater underneath a reactor has been measured at 10,000 times the government health standard.
A spokesman for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. says the company doesn't believe any drinking water supply is affected.
Contaminated water has been pooling at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power complex since it was damaged by the devastating earthquake and tsunami. It has already leaked into the ocean.
Spokesman Naoyuki Matsumo says the elevated levels of iodine-131 were measured in groundwater 15 meters underneath one of six reactors at the plant. Iodine is a radioactive substance that decays quickly, with half disappearing in eight days.
Because of the radiation leaks a mandatory evacuation zone around the plant has been ordered, and authorities have also recommended people in the 20-mile band might want to leave, too.
The International Atomic Energy Agency reported Wednesday that radiation levels in a village outside even the voluntary band registered at twice the threshold the agency recommends for evacuations, raising questions about whether to expand the mandatory 12-mile zone.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said authorities are carefully monitoring the radiation in village of Iitate, 25 miles from the plant.
"But we believe the situation does not require any immediate change to our current evacuation policy," he added.
In the shadow of Japan's struggle to stem radioactive leaks from its stricken nuclear complex, police in white moon suits pull bodies of tsunami victims from an evacuated zone in halting work interrupted by radiation alarms.
Authorities are increasingly turning to international help in stabilizing the plant and stemming the tide of radiation, while simultaneously dealing with the other disaster wrought by a March 11 tsunami: the decimation of hundreds of miles of northeastern coastline, the displacement of tens of thousands and the deaths of an estimated 19,000 people.
"We find bodies everywhere -- in cars, in rivers, under debris and in streets," a police official from the hard-hit Fukushima prefecture said Thursday. He spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
Efforts to recover the bodies from the 12-mile evacuation zone around the nuclear plant have been slowed by the scale of destruction and a wasteland of debris, but also by fears of radiation. Police in that prefecture dressed in full radiation suits grabbed 19 corpses from the rubble on Wednesday, the police official said.
Authorities declined to say how many bodies might still be buried in the evacuation zone, but local media have estimated hundreds remain.
Each officer wears a radiation detector and must leave the area whenever its alarm goes off -- a frequent occurrence that has often dragged the operation to a halt, the official said.
"We want to recover bodies quickly, but also must ensure the safety of police officers against nuclear radiation," he said.
Officers were forced to give up trying to recover one corpse Sunday after radiation on it triggered the alarm.
There are also concerns about the disposal of bodies since Japanese tend to cremate their dead, and fires can spread radiation. The Health Ministry recommends that the bodies should all be cleaned and those with even small levels of radiation should be handled only by people wearing suits, gloves and masks.
Police in affected prefectures have so far recovered more than 11,000 bodies, but estimate that at least 19,500 are dead.
Radiation concerns have also complicated efforts to bring the plant itself under control. Contaminated water pooling inside the complex has begun to leak into the ground and ocean and has restricted where crews can work, and puts them in the uncomfortable position of having to pump in more water to continue cooling the reactors while simultaneously pumping out contaminated water.
Japanese officials have struggled to stabilize the plant and are increasingly seeking help to stem and identify leaks. French, American and IAEA experts and robots are all in Japan or on their way.
Not only are officials struggling to get water out of the plant, but they are also beginning to run short of places to put it. Operations at one unit were suspended earlier in the week because its storage tank was filling up. The country's nuclear safety agency said the plant operator is considering a variety of stopgap measures, including bringing in more storage tanks, loading it onto a tanker ship and building a new makeshift waste facility.
Experts in eliminating contaminated water from French nuclear giant Areva arrived in Japan on Wednesday. France is heavily dependent on nuclear power and has offered regular evaluations of the fight in Fukushima.
"The amount of water is enormous, and we need any wisdom available," said nuclear safety agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama. The U.S. has also sent a remote-controlled robot, and officials from the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said they expect to use it within a few days for evaluating areas with high radiation.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who arrived Thursday in Tokyo to speak with the Japanese prime minister, praised the work being done at the plant.
"Every image I have seen is really, really disturbing, and I am really impressed by the workers in Fukushima who work at the nuclear plant with courage," Sarkozy said before meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan.
Japan has also sought expertise from the U.S., which stations thousands of troops in the Asian country. On Thursday, Tokyo said it was setting up a panel of Japanese and American nuclear experts and American military personnel to address the Fukushima crisis.
Source
Source is Fox wipe your feet if you are coming back here please :-)
FUKUSHIMA, Japan -- Officials with the company that operates Japan's tsunami-stricken nuclear plant say radioactive contamination in groundwater underneath a reactor has been measured at 10,000 times the government health standard.
A spokesman for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. says the company doesn't believe any drinking water supply is affected.
Contaminated water has been pooling at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power complex since it was damaged by the devastating earthquake and tsunami. It has already leaked into the ocean.
Spokesman Naoyuki Matsumo says the elevated levels of iodine-131 were measured in groundwater 15 meters underneath one of six reactors at the plant. Iodine is a radioactive substance that decays quickly, with half disappearing in eight days.
Because of the radiation leaks a mandatory evacuation zone around the plant has been ordered, and authorities have also recommended people in the 20-mile band might want to leave, too.
The International Atomic Energy Agency reported Wednesday that radiation levels in a village outside even the voluntary band registered at twice the threshold the agency recommends for evacuations, raising questions about whether to expand the mandatory 12-mile zone.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said authorities are carefully monitoring the radiation in village of Iitate, 25 miles from the plant.
"But we believe the situation does not require any immediate change to our current evacuation policy," he added.
In the shadow of Japan's struggle to stem radioactive leaks from its stricken nuclear complex, police in white moon suits pull bodies of tsunami victims from an evacuated zone in halting work interrupted by radiation alarms.
Authorities are increasingly turning to international help in stabilizing the plant and stemming the tide of radiation, while simultaneously dealing with the other disaster wrought by a March 11 tsunami: the decimation of hundreds of miles of northeastern coastline, the displacement of tens of thousands and the deaths of an estimated 19,000 people.
"We find bodies everywhere -- in cars, in rivers, under debris and in streets," a police official from the hard-hit Fukushima prefecture said Thursday. He spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
Efforts to recover the bodies from the 12-mile evacuation zone around the nuclear plant have been slowed by the scale of destruction and a wasteland of debris, but also by fears of radiation. Police in that prefecture dressed in full radiation suits grabbed 19 corpses from the rubble on Wednesday, the police official said.
Authorities declined to say how many bodies might still be buried in the evacuation zone, but local media have estimated hundreds remain.
Each officer wears a radiation detector and must leave the area whenever its alarm goes off -- a frequent occurrence that has often dragged the operation to a halt, the official said.
"We want to recover bodies quickly, but also must ensure the safety of police officers against nuclear radiation," he said.
Officers were forced to give up trying to recover one corpse Sunday after radiation on it triggered the alarm.
There are also concerns about the disposal of bodies since Japanese tend to cremate their dead, and fires can spread radiation. The Health Ministry recommends that the bodies should all be cleaned and those with even small levels of radiation should be handled only by people wearing suits, gloves and masks.
Police in affected prefectures have so far recovered more than 11,000 bodies, but estimate that at least 19,500 are dead.
Radiation concerns have also complicated efforts to bring the plant itself under control. Contaminated water pooling inside the complex has begun to leak into the ground and ocean and has restricted where crews can work, and puts them in the uncomfortable position of having to pump in more water to continue cooling the reactors while simultaneously pumping out contaminated water.
Japanese officials have struggled to stabilize the plant and are increasingly seeking help to stem and identify leaks. French, American and IAEA experts and robots are all in Japan or on their way.
Not only are officials struggling to get water out of the plant, but they are also beginning to run short of places to put it. Operations at one unit were suspended earlier in the week because its storage tank was filling up. The country's nuclear safety agency said the plant operator is considering a variety of stopgap measures, including bringing in more storage tanks, loading it onto a tanker ship and building a new makeshift waste facility.
Experts in eliminating contaminated water from French nuclear giant Areva arrived in Japan on Wednesday. France is heavily dependent on nuclear power and has offered regular evaluations of the fight in Fukushima.
"The amount of water is enormous, and we need any wisdom available," said nuclear safety agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama. The U.S. has also sent a remote-controlled robot, and officials from the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said they expect to use it within a few days for evaluating areas with high radiation.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who arrived Thursday in Tokyo to speak with the Japanese prime minister, praised the work being done at the plant.
"Every image I have seen is really, really disturbing, and I am really impressed by the workers in Fukushima who work at the nuclear plant with courage," Sarkozy said before meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan.
Japan has also sought expertise from the U.S., which stations thousands of troops in the Asian country. On Thursday, Tokyo said it was setting up a panel of Japanese and American nuclear experts and American military personnel to address the Fukushima crisis.
Source is Fox wipe your feet if you are coming back here please :-)
Atlantic Oil Spill
This just never stops - these oil companies are killing our oceans
Atlantic Oil Spill: 20,000 Endangered Penguins Coated In Crude On Tristan Da Cunha Islands
Source
International Bird Rescue Research Center
There has been a catastrophic oil spill on a remote island in the mid-South Atlantic Ocean that is threatening an entire colony of endangered Northern Rockhopper Penguins.
The MS Oliva ran aground on Nightingale Island, one of three islands of the Tristan da Cunha group, on March 16, 2011. All 22 crew were rescued before the ship broke up and leaked oil into the sea. The freighter was shipping soya beans from Rio de Janeiro to Singapore. It is said to be also carrying 1,650 tons of heavy crude oil.
Nightingale Island is regarded as one of the world's most important wildlife habitats. The island is home to 40% of the world’s population of Northern Rockhopper Penguins (photo, above), and about 20,000 have already been confirmed oiled.
There are species of albatross, petrels and shearwaters that nest on these islands. However, all of the reports of oiled birds have been about the penguins. The likely reason for this is that many of the flighted bird species fly out to sea before landing on water, thereby avoiding the oil along the coastline. Since the penguins are not flighted, they have to swim through it to get to the islands, making them the most vulnerable and highly impacted.
IBRRC’s colleagues at The Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) are leading bird rescue and rehabilitation efforts and will soon be en-route. You may remember that IBRRC has worked with SANCCOB in four different oil spills in Cape Town, South Africa. Most notably, in the Apollo Sea oil spill in 1995 we helped care for 10,000 oiled African Penguins, and during the 2000 Treasure oil spill we helped manage the rehabilitation of another 20,000.
International Bird Rescue
Atlantic Oil Spill: 20,000 Endangered Penguins Coated In Crude On Tristan Da Cunha Islands
International Bird Rescue Research Center
There has been a catastrophic oil spill on a remote island in the mid-South Atlantic Ocean that is threatening an entire colony of endangered Northern Rockhopper Penguins.
The MS Oliva ran aground on Nightingale Island, one of three islands of the Tristan da Cunha group, on March 16, 2011. All 22 crew were rescued before the ship broke up and leaked oil into the sea. The freighter was shipping soya beans from Rio de Janeiro to Singapore. It is said to be also carrying 1,650 tons of heavy crude oil.
Nightingale Island is regarded as one of the world's most important wildlife habitats. The island is home to 40% of the world’s population of Northern Rockhopper Penguins (photo, above), and about 20,000 have already been confirmed oiled.
There are species of albatross, petrels and shearwaters that nest on these islands. However, all of the reports of oiled birds have been about the penguins. The likely reason for this is that many of the flighted bird species fly out to sea before landing on water, thereby avoiding the oil along the coastline. Since the penguins are not flighted, they have to swim through it to get to the islands, making them the most vulnerable and highly impacted.
IBRRC’s colleagues at The Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) are leading bird rescue and rehabilitation efforts and will soon be en-route. You may remember that IBRRC has worked with SANCCOB in four different oil spills in Cape Town, South Africa. Most notably, in the Apollo Sea oil spill in 1995 we helped care for 10,000 oiled African Penguins, and during the 2000 Treasure oil spill we helped manage the rehabilitation of another 20,000.
International Bird Rescue
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Interview
A never-before-seen 'Rolling Stone' chat with the Hollywood icon
By Jonathan Cott
In 1987, Rolling Stone Contributing Editor Jonathan Cott sat down with Elizabeth Taylor in her suite at New York's Hôtel Plaza Athénée, when the actress was 55. "There was no standing on ceremony, no pretense, no pulling punches," recalls Cott. "She was so forthright, witty and fearless." The previously unpublished interview is presented here for the first time.
You started making films in Hollywood during the 1940s. How has the movie business changed since then?
It used to be a sin to be considered a Hollywood actor. Even worse to be a star — God forbid a superstar. Stage actors would accuse people of selling out when they'd go to Hollywood. Actually, I think the whole thing is a bunch of bullshit, and I always have. An actor is an actor whether it's in Hollywood, whether it's in Africa, whether it's on stage, television or in film. Acting has to be generated from within.
Read More
By Jonathan Cott
In 1987, Rolling Stone Contributing Editor Jonathan Cott sat down with Elizabeth Taylor in her suite at New York's Hôtel Plaza Athénée, when the actress was 55. "There was no standing on ceremony, no pretense, no pulling punches," recalls Cott. "She was so forthright, witty and fearless." The previously unpublished interview is presented here for the first time.
You started making films in Hollywood during the 1940s. How has the movie business changed since then?
It used to be a sin to be considered a Hollywood actor. Even worse to be a star — God forbid a superstar. Stage actors would accuse people of selling out when they'd go to Hollywood. Actually, I think the whole thing is a bunch of bullshit, and I always have. An actor is an actor whether it's in Hollywood, whether it's in Africa, whether it's on stage, television or in film. Acting has to be generated from within.
Webcam Nuclear Power Plant
Views from the observatory at 5 hours of 19 - are delivered in one hour intervals.
You can update the image, the image can be viewed by accessing the latest again.
When bad weather or strong backlight, the screen may be hard to see.
The shooting may stop by convenience. If so, post the last picture taken.
Google Translated.
Source
You can update the image, the image can be viewed by accessing the latest again.
When bad weather or strong backlight, the screen may be hard to see.
The shooting may stop by convenience. If so, post the last picture taken.
Google Translated.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
One World Currency
This Daily bell article makes some good points. One is that George Soros is a player, like Marurice Strong is a player, but the real forces are the IMF and powerful bankers from the US and London. The article also points how we see these dialectics set up like this one between a global currency and the dollar, then out of what seems like a heated debate between Right and Left comes a compromise, and then we're further along the route to the New World Order.
We have travelled so far from free market principles that the power elite aren't arguing over socialism and a free market -- they are deciding how to structure the power. Geithner floated this balloon last year, and now we'll likely see some action. Obama might appear aloof regarding our piddling national problems, because he's got his eyes on World President down the road. He'll have to run against Bill Clinton and Clinton's campaign manager Chris Matthews.
It all sounds like a conspiracy, except that it's not really being hidden.
The Article starts:
Two years ago, George Soros (left) said he wanted to reorganize the entire global economic system. In two short weeks, he is going to start – and no one seems to have noticed. On April 8, a group he's funded with $50 million is holding a major economic conference and Soros's goal for such an event is to "establish new international rules" and "reform the currency system." It's all according to a plan laid out in a Nov. 4, 2009, Soros op-ed calling for "a grand bargain that rearranges the entire financial order." – Media Research Center/Wall Street Journal
Dominant Social Theme: Soros, up to his old tricks. This leftist billionaire should just go home.
Free-Market Analysis: We'd realized last week (tipped off by a considerate feedbacker) just what George Soros was up to; but before we had a chance to write about it the Wall Street Journal blew the story open last night by picking up a Media Research Center article by Dan Gainor entitled "Unreported Soros Event Aims to Remake Entire Global Economy." We can safely say that Soros' planned new Bretton Woods Conference to build a new world currency, starting April 8, is unreported no more.
More at Source
We have travelled so far from free market principles that the power elite aren't arguing over socialism and a free market -- they are deciding how to structure the power. Geithner floated this balloon last year, and now we'll likely see some action. Obama might appear aloof regarding our piddling national problems, because he's got his eyes on World President down the road. He'll have to run against Bill Clinton and Clinton's campaign manager Chris Matthews.
It all sounds like a conspiracy, except that it's not really being hidden.
The Article starts:
Two years ago, George Soros (left) said he wanted to reorganize the entire global economic system. In two short weeks, he is going to start – and no one seems to have noticed. On April 8, a group he's funded with $50 million is holding a major economic conference and Soros's goal for such an event is to "establish new international rules" and "reform the currency system." It's all according to a plan laid out in a Nov. 4, 2009, Soros op-ed calling for "a grand bargain that rearranges the entire financial order." – Media Research Center/Wall Street Journal
Dominant Social Theme: Soros, up to his old tricks. This leftist billionaire should just go home.
Free-Market Analysis: We'd realized last week (tipped off by a considerate feedbacker) just what George Soros was up to; but before we had a chance to write about it the Wall Street Journal blew the story open last night by picking up a Media Research Center article by Dan Gainor entitled "Unreported Soros Event Aims to Remake Entire Global Economy." We can safely say that Soros' planned new Bretton Woods Conference to build a new world currency, starting April 8, is unreported no more.
Dumb and Dumber and Dumberer
I like the way this guy writes, he gets his point across
By Barry Ferguson
Created 27 Mar 2011
The Federal Reserve is not only the most profitable company in the world, it is now the largest in terms of earnings. How did society get so dumb to let this happen?
Jim Carrey starred in the movie 'Dumb and Dumber' in 1994. The movie told the story of the two stupidest humans on earth - Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne. They were 'dumb' and 'dumber'. But, even this over the top portrayal of these two stupid characters could not possibly equal the stupidity of the real characters that run our world today. They can only be described as 'dumberer'. Even worse, our 'leaders' must think of the rest of us as 'dumbererest'.
While I must admit that government has the general citizenry pretty well characterized (readers of articles such as this excluded), there are times when those of us who know better must speak out. It seems that every calamity in modern times gives the central banks an excuse to plunder treasuries and enrich the banking cartel. The big banks get rich and the rest of us pay for it. We willingly allow for such pilfering as long as the stock market goes up. Every move from the central banks is targeted to do just such a thing. An earthquake/tsunami struck Japan on March 11, 2011. The yen immediately appreciated and their stock market fell. The central banks of the G-7 immediately intervened to sell trillions in yen to stem the market plunge. The insanity is this: Why can't the 'market' decide where the yen or the market should be priced? The people of Japan needed help. A nuclear power facility threatened to 'melt down'. Yet, the BOJ's could only think of supporting the stock market. The US central bank is no different. Every disaster is a license to manipulate. Central banks intervene in market price discovery. For instance, our Fed is currently busy with QE2 intervention.
The absurdity with which our government behaves, the arrogance with which they dictate, and the preposterousness of their economic imposition is an insult to any life form beyond a jelly fish. In case you don't know, jelly fish are an organism without a brain. They also use the same orifice to feed and excrete. For reasons such as these, I tend to associate jelly fish with our rulers (government) - the Federal Reserve. Allow me to shed some light on the effects of intervention so we can decide if it is helpful.
The latest episode of insanity directed to the dumberest occurred on Tuesday, March 22, 2011. The Federal Reserve announced that 2010 brought forth record profits. (Remember - a lot of dumb people think the Fed is a part of the US government.) No, not for us - for them! The Fed made a record $81.7 billion in 2010 'largely on investments made to help the economy and banks weather the 2007 - 2009 financial crisis'. As per their mandate, they turned over the bulk of the loot to the US Treasury - some $79.3 billion. (Remember - there are a lot dumber people that think the Fed does not operate as a 'for profit', 'private bank'.) This adds to the $47.4 billion the Fed transferred to the Treasury in 2009. The Fed would like us to believe this is a wonderful development in that they have transferred to the Treasury a sum of $126.7 billion over the past two years. (Remember, there are a lot of dumberest people that actually think the Fed acts only in the best interests of its subjects. There are more Pelosi types running around than you would think.)
How again did the Fed earn $87.7 billion in a year? They are, of course, an intervening market manipulation machine. And, they are indeed a bank and banks make money by lending it. Don't forget trading securities and derivatives is also profitable if you have all the inside information. The Fed has an advantage in that they can simply conjure money out of thin air for which to lend. Better yet, they can simply 'create' money on spreadsheets for which to lend. And, on all the money they steal from their subjects, uh..., I mean 'create', they charge interest! Could there be a better business model for pure profits? Now, think for a moment. Wouldn't a profound financial crisis to a government present an opportunity to lend huge sums of money and impose vast power? Think a little harder. Name a company that profited more from the financial meltdown of the last decade than the Federal Reserve?
For perspective, Exxon made an estimated $30 billion for the year 2010. Yet, somehow the dumberest of the dumber society malign companies like Exxon as corporate pigs. These people think companies that make tens of billions of dollars in profits are obscene and they should be subjected to 'windfall' taxation. The Fed beat Exxon by a factor of 3! Do we hear any complaining? In reality, we can now say that the Federal Reserve is by earnings the largest company operating in the US. And yes, for the dumberestest people, the Fed is a 'private corporation' feeding on the US taxpayer. How did they make their money again? Oh yeah, the were 'helping' their banking friends through a crisis. Please, tell that to Lloyd Christmas! The real question is, are we now better off for all the Fed's intervention? After all, the Fed did give the Treasury $126.7 billion in windfall earnings over the last two years. While I admit that I graduated from public schools, I decided to make like Jethro Bodine and commence to do a little ciphering.
Besides the forfeiture of capitalism, freedom, dignity, and sovereignty, how much did this $125.7 billion cost us? From the end of 2008 to the end of 2010, the national debt grew from $10.7 trillion to $14 trillion. That's an increase of $3.3 trillion. That was the capital the Fed used to 'help the economy and banks' through the financial disaster that they, the Fed, helped to generate. That $3.3 trillion was borrowed at an average interest rate of 3.1% (according to the Fed). Once I cipher $3.3 trillion times 3.1% using my 'times-its table' (okay, I used a calculator), I come up with $102 billion in interest coupons on the extra debt. $125.7 billion minus the $102 billion nets the Treasury about $24 billion on the deal. That is, until we have to roll the debt over in another seven to ten years and then it costs the tax payers another $102 billion (or whatever the prevailing interest rates might dictate) and now the whole deal is a loser to the tune of hundreds of billions on top of the tens of trillions that the country already cannot repay. Yet, the Federal Reserve rakes in record profits from this action. The tax payers accumulate record debt. If we focus on that aspect, we miss the point of the Fed's intent. The most important thing is that Mr. Dimon of J.P. Morgan and Mr. Moynihan of Bank of America got their $20 million dollar compensation packages. That makes me feel better, anyway!
So we are supposed to believe that the Fed has our best interest at heart. They are working hard to revive the economy and restore our portfolios. Please, we would have to be dumber than the dumberestest person on earth to believe that! Let's look at how dumb the Fed thinks we are.
The Fed produces a report on the fiscal condition of the citizenry in the US.
From the Federal Reserve statistical release year 2010 'Flow of Funds Accounts of the United States' page 118 (http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/current/z1.pdf [1]):
'Balance Sheet of Household and Nonprofit Organizations with Equity Detail' - From 2008 to 2010, 'Assets' grew from $65.5 trillion to $70.7 trillion. Let us make note, however, that 'Tangible assets' fell from $24.3 trillion to $23.1 trillion. Where did the 'Asset' increase come from? 'Equity shares at market value' rose from $12.4 trillion to $18.1 trillion. 'Net Worth' rose from $51.3 trillion to $56.8 trillion. Net worth increases were a function of the stock market only. Real assets like real estate continued to contract. The Fed is using market manipulation to fool its audience. After all, the top 10 percent of income earners own 90% of all stocks. Mutual fund ownership is even less than 50% of the US populace. The 'net worth' increase is confined to stock owners and even then, to large stock owners. We can corroborate this notion with all the other analysis out today showing an ever widening gap between rich and poor. Therefore, modern economic improvement only holds true for a slim minority of already very wealthy friends of the Fed.
What is the fiscal condition of the US government?
Same release, page 68 - 'L.106 Federal Government' - 'Total financial assets' grew from $1.268 trillion to $1.650 trillion. That roughly $400 billion dollar gain came from two areas. One, 'Agency- and GSE-backed securities' grew from $54 billion to $225 billion and two, 'Consumer credit' grew from $111 billion to $317 billion. In case you want to know, the 'agency' stuff is bad mortgage paper held by Fannie and Freddie (the Fed 'transferred' the 'equity' to us, the taxpayers, while they kept the 'loan') and 'consumer credit' is actually 'student loans' (I followed the asterisk). Yes, 'student loans' are actually counted as an 'asset'. Aren't student loan default rates pretty high?
This is information we need to know so allow me to expand my topic here. The student loan default rate reported by the government is currently 7%. Of course, since this is a government number, we know without question it is yet another bald face lie. Our government cannot utter one letter of one syllable of one word of truth if Jesus wrote it on an index card and God helped move their jaw. So, I did a little reading. According to Mark Kantrowitz of FinAid (in an article published by msn.com, 2010), there is about $730 billion in outstanding federal and private student loan debt and only 40% is actively being repaid. You can do your own ciphering on the real default rate but 7% ain't the right answer. Don't forget to carry the knots when you do your 'gozendas'! Of course Sallie Mae accounts for half of this figure but we must remember, the new government regulations now give Sallie a virtual monopoly in student loans. Two last points. First, this type of debt cannot easily be washed away by bankruptcy and can therefore be carried on the books regardless of potential collectibility. That makes the assets of the government seem larger than reality. Also, one of the players in the student loan world is a company named Student Loan Corp. They are a division of - guess who? - Citigroup. Do I smell rat droppings? Yes, again, the bank makes the money to service the loan and the tax payer is on the hook for defaults. Second, with the default numbers as bad as they really are, student loans that experience a stoppage of payment after two years of commencement are no longer statistically factored. Those loan defaults are not counted. That's why the 7% government number is so ridiculous.
Also interesting, Federal liabilities grew in 2010 by a little over $3 trillion and almost all of that was of course 'Treasury securities'. So, the Fed wants us to believe that government assets are growing and total $1.650 trillion. Yet, the Federal Reserve now boasts of assets totaling over $2.4 trillion!
So, the Fed has assets of $2.4 trillion and no debt (everything they have is guaranteed by the taxpayers and everything they buy comes from money they 'print' from our Treasury) and the US government has assets of $1.6 trillion and $14 trillion in debt. Yes, it should be apparent to even the dumberest of dumb, we have been swindled. See my previous article on the Fed's swindle: The Fed's Furtive Filching [2]. But there's more.
All this manipulation and stimulation and intervention has pumped a ton of money into the big bank cartel's hands. Uh, I mean the 'financial system'. And yes, a lot of that money has made its way into rallying the stock market. Let's go even dumber with the Fed. Uh, I mean, 'deeper'.
March 22, 2011 - Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher said he is "beginning to see the signs of speculative excess" in the US. He added, " There's a lot of liquidity sloshing around the US financial system". I didn't get the transcript of the entire speech but he must have also expressed his sudden realization that the Earth was not really flat! Maybe he is seeing signs that the Earth orbits the Sun! Perhaps he is also seeing signs that the invention of the wheel might be useful! We must remind ourselves that Mr. Fisher is known to be a 'hawkish' member of the Fed. We currently have earthquakes and tsunamis exacting severe economic damage (Japan's HAARP-ing), riots spurred by economic disparity (Mideast and Northern Africa, parts of Asia), countries bowing to central banks for debt bailouts (the US, Greece, Ireland,...), inflation threatening the fastest growing economies (China, India, Brazil), a melting US currency, the worst new home sales for the month of February, 2011 in history (since 1963 when statistics were started), falling durable goods orders for the fourth month in a row in February (2011), military conquests everywhere, no budget in the US because the gutless Congress can neither cut spending nor sign off on another $1.5 trillion in borrowed money to add to the already $14.2 trillion debt that cannot be repaid, and economies totally supported by central bank injections. And yet, the stock market rallies on. Speculative excess? Boy, I wonder what finally opened Mr. Fisher's eyes? Sadly, he also thinks that the economy is improving (in the face of new home sales falling to the lowest level since records began in 1963), unemployment is 8.9% (despite a 3/23/2011 IBD< front page story reporting the 'real' number of 22% confirming that absolutely no one in the entire solar system believes the fake-o US government numbers), and that Fed-induced inflationary effects would be 'transitory' (as they always are until rising prices eventually collapse an economy). Dumb, dumber, dumberest, and even dumberestest. Why do we accept so many lies? Why do we tolerate a government of mendacity? How has a country conceived by geniuses like Jefferson and Madison (framed a constitution to greatly limit the powers of the federal government), and guided by the sheer indomitable courage of Andrew Jackson (vetoed the charter of the central bank of his time) fallen so far? Why has surrender to these evils of government and central banking come so easily? Because, our country is not only inhabited by the Lloyd Christmases and Harry Dunnes of the world, but we are led by these intellectual dwarfs. Dumb and dumber and dumberest indeed! Thank you for taking time to read this piece. Now spread the truth. Me? I've got stocks to buy to keep the speculative excess going!Source
By Barry Ferguson
Created 27 Mar 2011
The Federal Reserve is not only the most profitable company in the world, it is now the largest in terms of earnings. How did society get so dumb to let this happen?
Jim Carrey starred in the movie 'Dumb and Dumber' in 1994. The movie told the story of the two stupidest humans on earth - Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne. They were 'dumb' and 'dumber'. But, even this over the top portrayal of these two stupid characters could not possibly equal the stupidity of the real characters that run our world today. They can only be described as 'dumberer'. Even worse, our 'leaders' must think of the rest of us as 'dumbererest'.
While I must admit that government has the general citizenry pretty well characterized (readers of articles such as this excluded), there are times when those of us who know better must speak out. It seems that every calamity in modern times gives the central banks an excuse to plunder treasuries and enrich the banking cartel. The big banks get rich and the rest of us pay for it. We willingly allow for such pilfering as long as the stock market goes up. Every move from the central banks is targeted to do just such a thing. An earthquake/tsunami struck Japan on March 11, 2011. The yen immediately appreciated and their stock market fell. The central banks of the G-7 immediately intervened to sell trillions in yen to stem the market plunge. The insanity is this: Why can't the 'market' decide where the yen or the market should be priced? The people of Japan needed help. A nuclear power facility threatened to 'melt down'. Yet, the BOJ's could only think of supporting the stock market. The US central bank is no different. Every disaster is a license to manipulate. Central banks intervene in market price discovery. For instance, our Fed is currently busy with QE2 intervention.
The absurdity with which our government behaves, the arrogance with which they dictate, and the preposterousness of their economic imposition is an insult to any life form beyond a jelly fish. In case you don't know, jelly fish are an organism without a brain. They also use the same orifice to feed and excrete. For reasons such as these, I tend to associate jelly fish with our rulers (government) - the Federal Reserve. Allow me to shed some light on the effects of intervention so we can decide if it is helpful.
The latest episode of insanity directed to the dumberest occurred on Tuesday, March 22, 2011. The Federal Reserve announced that 2010 brought forth record profits. (Remember - a lot of dumb people think the Fed is a part of the US government.) No, not for us - for them! The Fed made a record $81.7 billion in 2010 'largely on investments made to help the economy and banks weather the 2007 - 2009 financial crisis'. As per their mandate, they turned over the bulk of the loot to the US Treasury - some $79.3 billion. (Remember - there are a lot dumber people that think the Fed does not operate as a 'for profit', 'private bank'.) This adds to the $47.4 billion the Fed transferred to the Treasury in 2009. The Fed would like us to believe this is a wonderful development in that they have transferred to the Treasury a sum of $126.7 billion over the past two years. (Remember, there are a lot of dumberest people that actually think the Fed acts only in the best interests of its subjects. There are more Pelosi types running around than you would think.)
How again did the Fed earn $87.7 billion in a year? They are, of course, an intervening market manipulation machine. And, they are indeed a bank and banks make money by lending it. Don't forget trading securities and derivatives is also profitable if you have all the inside information. The Fed has an advantage in that they can simply conjure money out of thin air for which to lend. Better yet, they can simply 'create' money on spreadsheets for which to lend. And, on all the money they steal from their subjects, uh..., I mean 'create', they charge interest! Could there be a better business model for pure profits? Now, think for a moment. Wouldn't a profound financial crisis to a government present an opportunity to lend huge sums of money and impose vast power? Think a little harder. Name a company that profited more from the financial meltdown of the last decade than the Federal Reserve?
For perspective, Exxon made an estimated $30 billion for the year 2010. Yet, somehow the dumberest of the dumber society malign companies like Exxon as corporate pigs. These people think companies that make tens of billions of dollars in profits are obscene and they should be subjected to 'windfall' taxation. The Fed beat Exxon by a factor of 3! Do we hear any complaining? In reality, we can now say that the Federal Reserve is by earnings the largest company operating in the US. And yes, for the dumberestest people, the Fed is a 'private corporation' feeding on the US taxpayer. How did they make their money again? Oh yeah, the were 'helping' their banking friends through a crisis. Please, tell that to Lloyd Christmas! The real question is, are we now better off for all the Fed's intervention? After all, the Fed did give the Treasury $126.7 billion in windfall earnings over the last two years. While I admit that I graduated from public schools, I decided to make like Jethro Bodine and commence to do a little ciphering.
Besides the forfeiture of capitalism, freedom, dignity, and sovereignty, how much did this $125.7 billion cost us? From the end of 2008 to the end of 2010, the national debt grew from $10.7 trillion to $14 trillion. That's an increase of $3.3 trillion. That was the capital the Fed used to 'help the economy and banks' through the financial disaster that they, the Fed, helped to generate. That $3.3 trillion was borrowed at an average interest rate of 3.1% (according to the Fed). Once I cipher $3.3 trillion times 3.1% using my 'times-its table' (okay, I used a calculator), I come up with $102 billion in interest coupons on the extra debt. $125.7 billion minus the $102 billion nets the Treasury about $24 billion on the deal. That is, until we have to roll the debt over in another seven to ten years and then it costs the tax payers another $102 billion (or whatever the prevailing interest rates might dictate) and now the whole deal is a loser to the tune of hundreds of billions on top of the tens of trillions that the country already cannot repay. Yet, the Federal Reserve rakes in record profits from this action. The tax payers accumulate record debt. If we focus on that aspect, we miss the point of the Fed's intent. The most important thing is that Mr. Dimon of J.P. Morgan and Mr. Moynihan of Bank of America got their $20 million dollar compensation packages. That makes me feel better, anyway!
So we are supposed to believe that the Fed has our best interest at heart. They are working hard to revive the economy and restore our portfolios. Please, we would have to be dumber than the dumberestest person on earth to believe that! Let's look at how dumb the Fed thinks we are.
The Fed produces a report on the fiscal condition of the citizenry in the US.
From the Federal Reserve statistical release year 2010 'Flow of Funds Accounts of the United States' page 118 (http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/current/z1.pdf [1]):
'Balance Sheet of Household and Nonprofit Organizations with Equity Detail' - From 2008 to 2010, 'Assets' grew from $65.5 trillion to $70.7 trillion. Let us make note, however, that 'Tangible assets' fell from $24.3 trillion to $23.1 trillion. Where did the 'Asset' increase come from? 'Equity shares at market value' rose from $12.4 trillion to $18.1 trillion. 'Net Worth' rose from $51.3 trillion to $56.8 trillion. Net worth increases were a function of the stock market only. Real assets like real estate continued to contract. The Fed is using market manipulation to fool its audience. After all, the top 10 percent of income earners own 90% of all stocks. Mutual fund ownership is even less than 50% of the US populace. The 'net worth' increase is confined to stock owners and even then, to large stock owners. We can corroborate this notion with all the other analysis out today showing an ever widening gap between rich and poor. Therefore, modern economic improvement only holds true for a slim minority of already very wealthy friends of the Fed.
What is the fiscal condition of the US government?
Same release, page 68 - 'L.106 Federal Government' - 'Total financial assets' grew from $1.268 trillion to $1.650 trillion. That roughly $400 billion dollar gain came from two areas. One, 'Agency- and GSE-backed securities' grew from $54 billion to $225 billion and two, 'Consumer credit' grew from $111 billion to $317 billion. In case you want to know, the 'agency' stuff is bad mortgage paper held by Fannie and Freddie (the Fed 'transferred' the 'equity' to us, the taxpayers, while they kept the 'loan') and 'consumer credit' is actually 'student loans' (I followed the asterisk). Yes, 'student loans' are actually counted as an 'asset'. Aren't student loan default rates pretty high?
This is information we need to know so allow me to expand my topic here. The student loan default rate reported by the government is currently 7%. Of course, since this is a government number, we know without question it is yet another bald face lie. Our government cannot utter one letter of one syllable of one word of truth if Jesus wrote it on an index card and God helped move their jaw. So, I did a little reading. According to Mark Kantrowitz of FinAid (in an article published by msn.com, 2010), there is about $730 billion in outstanding federal and private student loan debt and only 40% is actively being repaid. You can do your own ciphering on the real default rate but 7% ain't the right answer. Don't forget to carry the knots when you do your 'gozendas'! Of course Sallie Mae accounts for half of this figure but we must remember, the new government regulations now give Sallie a virtual monopoly in student loans. Two last points. First, this type of debt cannot easily be washed away by bankruptcy and can therefore be carried on the books regardless of potential collectibility. That makes the assets of the government seem larger than reality. Also, one of the players in the student loan world is a company named Student Loan Corp. They are a division of - guess who? - Citigroup. Do I smell rat droppings? Yes, again, the bank makes the money to service the loan and the tax payer is on the hook for defaults. Second, with the default numbers as bad as they really are, student loans that experience a stoppage of payment after two years of commencement are no longer statistically factored. Those loan defaults are not counted. That's why the 7% government number is so ridiculous.
Also interesting, Federal liabilities grew in 2010 by a little over $3 trillion and almost all of that was of course 'Treasury securities'. So, the Fed wants us to believe that government assets are growing and total $1.650 trillion. Yet, the Federal Reserve now boasts of assets totaling over $2.4 trillion!
So, the Fed has assets of $2.4 trillion and no debt (everything they have is guaranteed by the taxpayers and everything they buy comes from money they 'print' from our Treasury) and the US government has assets of $1.6 trillion and $14 trillion in debt. Yes, it should be apparent to even the dumberest of dumb, we have been swindled. See my previous article on the Fed's swindle: The Fed's Furtive Filching [2]. But there's more.
All this manipulation and stimulation and intervention has pumped a ton of money into the big bank cartel's hands. Uh, I mean the 'financial system'. And yes, a lot of that money has made its way into rallying the stock market. Let's go even dumber with the Fed. Uh, I mean, 'deeper'.
March 22, 2011 - Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher said he is "beginning to see the signs of speculative excess" in the US. He added, " There's a lot of liquidity sloshing around the US financial system". I didn't get the transcript of the entire speech but he must have also expressed his sudden realization that the Earth was not really flat! Maybe he is seeing signs that the Earth orbits the Sun! Perhaps he is also seeing signs that the invention of the wheel might be useful! We must remind ourselves that Mr. Fisher is known to be a 'hawkish' member of the Fed. We currently have earthquakes and tsunamis exacting severe economic damage (Japan's HAARP-ing), riots spurred by economic disparity (Mideast and Northern Africa, parts of Asia), countries bowing to central banks for debt bailouts (the US, Greece, Ireland,...), inflation threatening the fastest growing economies (China, India, Brazil), a melting US currency, the worst new home sales for the month of February, 2011 in history (since 1963 when statistics were started), falling durable goods orders for the fourth month in a row in February (2011), military conquests everywhere, no budget in the US because the gutless Congress can neither cut spending nor sign off on another $1.5 trillion in borrowed money to add to the already $14.2 trillion debt that cannot be repaid, and economies totally supported by central bank injections. And yet, the stock market rallies on. Speculative excess? Boy, I wonder what finally opened Mr. Fisher's eyes? Sadly, he also thinks that the economy is improving (in the face of new home sales falling to the lowest level since records began in 1963), unemployment is 8.9% (despite a 3/23/2011 IBD< front page story reporting the 'real' number of 22% confirming that absolutely no one in the entire solar system believes the fake-o US government numbers), and that Fed-induced inflationary effects would be 'transitory' (as they always are until rising prices eventually collapse an economy). Dumb, dumber, dumberest, and even dumberestest. Why do we accept so many lies? Why do we tolerate a government of mendacity? How has a country conceived by geniuses like Jefferson and Madison (framed a constitution to greatly limit the powers of the federal government), and guided by the sheer indomitable courage of Andrew Jackson (vetoed the charter of the central bank of his time) fallen so far? Why has surrender to these evils of government and central banking come so easily? Because, our country is not only inhabited by the Lloyd Christmases and Harry Dunnes of the world, but we are led by these intellectual dwarfs. Dumb and dumber and dumberest indeed! Thank you for taking time to read this piece. Now spread the truth. Me? I've got stocks to buy to keep the speculative excess going!
WikiLeaks billboard erected in Hollywood
Los Angeles - Private donations from around the world contributed to the erection of a billboard in support of whistleblower website WikiLeaks in Los Angeles.
The campaign began on 6 March on the Epic Step website, taking six days and 195 pledges to reach its target of $4300.
Pledges came from across the globe, with support for the campaign from Sweden, Canada, Germany, Australia and Brazil, as well as from across the United Sates of America.
The campaign founder writes: "It is my sincere hope that everyone who believes in freedom of speech and transparency in government will take action [...] We need to show our elected officials that we defend WikiLeaks [...] Billboards in L.A. can produce over 1.5 million views in a single month."
"Advertising power rests with big corporations or well-funded special interests," says the campaign website, "you probably can't afford a billboard on your own."
Currently in alpha stage with only a small number of campaigns running, the website intends to support messages for any purpose: "Political, religious, environmental, sports and everything in between." Others are running in support of rescued dog adoption, "Charlie Sheen has Tiger Blood," and "Lakers Rule Your City," to be placed in New Orleans before the upcoming NBA basketball playoff games.
A second campaign in support of Wikileaks is underway for a billboard in Chicago.
Rumours suggest that Epic Step intend to extend their campaign capabilities to other countries.
Source
The campaign began on 6 March on the Epic Step website, taking six days and 195 pledges to reach its target of $4300.
Pledges came from across the globe, with support for the campaign from Sweden, Canada, Germany, Australia and Brazil, as well as from across the United Sates of America.
The campaign founder writes: "It is my sincere hope that everyone who believes in freedom of speech and transparency in government will take action [...] We need to show our elected officials that we defend WikiLeaks [...] Billboards in L.A. can produce over 1.5 million views in a single month."
"Advertising power rests with big corporations or well-funded special interests," says the campaign website, "you probably can't afford a billboard on your own."
Currently in alpha stage with only a small number of campaigns running, the website intends to support messages for any purpose: "Political, religious, environmental, sports and everything in between." Others are running in support of rescued dog adoption, "Charlie Sheen has Tiger Blood," and "Lakers Rule Your City," to be placed in New Orleans before the upcoming NBA basketball playoff games.
A second campaign in support of Wikileaks is underway for a billboard in Chicago.
Rumours suggest that Epic Step intend to extend their campaign capabilities to other countries.
Japan may have lost race to save nuclear reactor
The radioactive core in a reactor at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor, experts say, raising fears of a major release of radiation at the site.
The warning follows an analysis by a leading US expert of radiation levels at the plant. Readings from reactor two at the site have been made public by the Japanese authorities and Tepco, the utility that operates it.
Richard Lahey, who was head of safety research for boiling-water reactors at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, told the Guardian workers at the site appeared to have "lost the race" to save the reactor, but said there was no danger of a Chernobyl-style catastrophe.
Workers have been pumping water into three reactors at the stricken plant in a desperate bid to keep the fuel rods from melting down, but the fuel is at least partially exposed in all the reactors.
At least part of the molten core, which includes melted fuel rods and zirconium alloy cladding, seemed to have sunk through the steel "lower head" of the pressure vessel around reactor two, Lahey said.
"The indications we have, from the reactor to radiation readings and the materials they are seeing, suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell," Lahey said. "I hope I am wrong, but that is certainly what the evidence is pointing towards."
The major concern when molten fuel breaches a containment vessel is that it reacts with the concrete floor of the drywell underneath, releasing radioactive gases into the surrounding area. At Fukushima, the drywell has been flooded with seawater, which will cool any molten fuel that escapes from the reactor and reduce the amount of radioactive gas released.
Lahey said: "It won't come out as one big glob; it'll come out like lava, and that is good because it's easier to cool."
The drywell is surrounded by a secondary steel-and-concrete structure designed to keep radioactive material from escaping into the environment. But an earlier hydrogen explosion at the reactor may have damaged this.
"The reason we are concerned is that they are detecting water outside the containment area that is highly radioactive and it can only have come from the reactor core," Lahey added. "It's not going to be anything like Chernobyl, where it went up with a big fire and steam explosion, but it's not going to be good news for the environment."
The radiation level at a pool of water in the turbine room of reactor two was measured recently at 1,000 millisieverts per hour. At that level, workers could remain in the area for just 15 minutes, under current exposure guidelines.
A less serious core meltdown happened at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania in 1979. During that incident, engineers managed to cool the molten fuel before it penetrated the steel pressure vessel. The task is a race against time, because as the fuel melts it forms a blob that becomes increasingly difficult to cool.
In the light of the Fukushima crisis, Lahey said all countries with nuclear power stations should have "Swat teams" of nuclear reactor safety experts on standby to give swift advice to the authorities in times of emergency, with international groups co-ordinated by the International Atomic Energy Authority.
The warning came as the Japanese authorities were being urged to give clearer advice to the public about the safety of food and drinking water contaminated with radioactive substances from Fukushima.
Robert Peter Gale, a US medical researcher who was brought in by Soviet authorities after the Chernobyl disaster, in 1986, has met Japanese cabinet ministers to discuss establishing an independent committee charged with taking radiation data from the site and translating it into clear public health advice.
"What is fundamentally disturbing the public is reports of drinking water one day being above some limit, and then a day or two later it's suddenly safe to drink. People don't know if the first instance was alarmist or whether the second one was untrue," said Gale.
"My recommendation is they should consider establishing a small commission to independently convert the data into comprehensible units of risk for the public so people know what they are dealing with and can take sensible decisions," he added.
Source
The warning follows an analysis by a leading US expert of radiation levels at the plant. Readings from reactor two at the site have been made public by the Japanese authorities and Tepco, the utility that operates it.
Richard Lahey, who was head of safety research for boiling-water reactors at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, told the Guardian workers at the site appeared to have "lost the race" to save the reactor, but said there was no danger of a Chernobyl-style catastrophe.
Workers have been pumping water into three reactors at the stricken plant in a desperate bid to keep the fuel rods from melting down, but the fuel is at least partially exposed in all the reactors.
At least part of the molten core, which includes melted fuel rods and zirconium alloy cladding, seemed to have sunk through the steel "lower head" of the pressure vessel around reactor two, Lahey said.
"The indications we have, from the reactor to radiation readings and the materials they are seeing, suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell," Lahey said. "I hope I am wrong, but that is certainly what the evidence is pointing towards."
The major concern when molten fuel breaches a containment vessel is that it reacts with the concrete floor of the drywell underneath, releasing radioactive gases into the surrounding area. At Fukushima, the drywell has been flooded with seawater, which will cool any molten fuel that escapes from the reactor and reduce the amount of radioactive gas released.
Lahey said: "It won't come out as one big glob; it'll come out like lava, and that is good because it's easier to cool."
The drywell is surrounded by a secondary steel-and-concrete structure designed to keep radioactive material from escaping into the environment. But an earlier hydrogen explosion at the reactor may have damaged this.
"The reason we are concerned is that they are detecting water outside the containment area that is highly radioactive and it can only have come from the reactor core," Lahey added. "It's not going to be anything like Chernobyl, where it went up with a big fire and steam explosion, but it's not going to be good news for the environment."
The radiation level at a pool of water in the turbine room of reactor two was measured recently at 1,000 millisieverts per hour. At that level, workers could remain in the area for just 15 minutes, under current exposure guidelines.
A less serious core meltdown happened at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania in 1979. During that incident, engineers managed to cool the molten fuel before it penetrated the steel pressure vessel. The task is a race against time, because as the fuel melts it forms a blob that becomes increasingly difficult to cool.
In the light of the Fukushima crisis, Lahey said all countries with nuclear power stations should have "Swat teams" of nuclear reactor safety experts on standby to give swift advice to the authorities in times of emergency, with international groups co-ordinated by the International Atomic Energy Authority.
The warning came as the Japanese authorities were being urged to give clearer advice to the public about the safety of food and drinking water contaminated with radioactive substances from Fukushima.
Robert Peter Gale, a US medical researcher who was brought in by Soviet authorities after the Chernobyl disaster, in 1986, has met Japanese cabinet ministers to discuss establishing an independent committee charged with taking radiation data from the site and translating it into clear public health advice.
"What is fundamentally disturbing the public is reports of drinking water one day being above some limit, and then a day or two later it's suddenly safe to drink. People don't know if the first instance was alarmist or whether the second one was untrue," said Gale.
"My recommendation is they should consider establishing a small commission to independently convert the data into comprehensible units of risk for the public so people know what they are dealing with and can take sensible decisions," he added.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
The Kill Team - US Soldiers in Afghanistan
How U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan murdered innocent civilians and mutilated their corpses – and how their officers failed to stop them. Plus: An exclusive look at the war crime photos censored by the Pentagon
From the start, the questionable nature of the killings was on the radar of senior Army leadership. Within days of the first murder, Rolling Stone has learned, Mudin's uncle descended on the gates of FOB Ramrod, along with 20 villagers from La Mohammad Kalay, to demand an investigation. "They were sitting at our front door," recalls Lt. Col. David Abrahams, the battalion's second in command. During a four-hour meeting with Mudin's uncle, Abrahams was informed that several children in the village had seen Mudin killed by soldiers from 3rd Platoon. The battalion chief ordered the soldiers to be reinterviewed, but Abrahams found "no inconsistencies in their story," and the matter was dropped. "It was cut and dry to us at the time," Abrahams recalls.
Other officers were also in a position to question the murders. Neither 3rd Platoon's commander, Capt. Matthew Quiggle, nor 1st Lt. Roman Ligsay has been held accountable for their unit's actions, despite their repeated failure to report killings that they had ample reason to regard as suspicious. In fact, supervising the murderous platoon, or even having knowledge of the crimes, seems to have been no impediment to career advancement. Ligsay has actually been promoted to captain, and a sergeant who joined the platoon in April became a team leader even though he "found out about the murders from the beginning," according to a soldier who cooperated with the Army investigation.
Finish reading @ Rollingstone
From the start, the questionable nature of the killings was on the radar of senior Army leadership. Within days of the first murder, Rolling Stone has learned, Mudin's uncle descended on the gates of FOB Ramrod, along with 20 villagers from La Mohammad Kalay, to demand an investigation. "They were sitting at our front door," recalls Lt. Col. David Abrahams, the battalion's second in command. During a four-hour meeting with Mudin's uncle, Abrahams was informed that several children in the village had seen Mudin killed by soldiers from 3rd Platoon. The battalion chief ordered the soldiers to be reinterviewed, but Abrahams found "no inconsistencies in their story," and the matter was dropped. "It was cut and dry to us at the time," Abrahams recalls.
Other officers were also in a position to question the murders. Neither 3rd Platoon's commander, Capt. Matthew Quiggle, nor 1st Lt. Roman Ligsay has been held accountable for their unit's actions, despite their repeated failure to report killings that they had ample reason to regard as suspicious. In fact, supervising the murderous platoon, or even having knowledge of the crimes, seems to have been no impediment to career advancement. Ligsay has actually been promoted to captain, and a sergeant who joined the platoon in April became a team leader even though he "found out about the murders from the beginning," according to a soldier who cooperated with the Army investigation.
Can Vitamins or Herbs Help Protect Us from Radiation?
Preface: This is written for the millions of people around the world who are worried about radiation from the Japanese nuclear reactors. For those who are not worried about radiation from Japan, you can ignore this post, or save it for any future radiation scares closer to home.
How do we protect ourselves against radiation?
It is true that potassium iodide protects against high doses of a certain type of radiation. As the New York Times notes [1]:
Fortunately, an easy form of protection is potassium iodide, a simple compound typically added to table salt to prevent goiter and a form of mental retardation caused by a dietary lack of iodine.
If ingested promptly after a nuclear accident, potassium iodide, in concentrated form, can help reduce the dose of radiation to the thyroid and thus the risk of cancer. In the United States, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission recommends that people living within a 10-mile emergency planning zone around a nuclear plant have access to potassium iodide tablets.
Indeed, virtually all suppliers of potassium iodide have sold out, especially after , the U.S. Surgeon General recommended that West Coast residents stock up
But as I noted [3] yesterday:
Keep in mind that iodide only protects against one particular radioactive element: radioactive iodine, technically known as iodine-131. Iodine-131 has a half life of only 8.02 days [4]. That means that the iodine loses half of its radioactivity within 8 days.
The government hasn't stockpiled much potassium iodide. As the New York Times notes [5]:
Congress passed legislation in 2002 requiring the federal government to supply potassium iodide capsules to people living within 20 miles of nuclear power plants in the United States.
But the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama have not implemented that provision, saying the law allows for alternatives.
Some states have given pills to people living within 10 miles of nuclear plants, or stockpiled the pills for those people.
But given that the government says that only minute amounts of radiation will hit the United States, and given that iodine-131 has such a short half-life, the whole issue may be moot (many, however, do not trust the government's assurances. See this [6] and this [7]). And taking high doses of potassium iodide can be harmful, especially for people with certain pre-existing medical conditions. So talk to your doctor before taking any.
Other Radiation Dangers
While iodine-131 poisoning can be prevented with potassium iodide, there are no silver bullets for other radioactive isotopes.
More
How do we protect ourselves against radiation?
It is true that potassium iodide protects against high doses of a certain type of radiation. As the New York Times notes [1]:
Fortunately, an easy form of protection is potassium iodide, a simple compound typically added to table salt to prevent goiter and a form of mental retardation caused by a dietary lack of iodine.
If ingested promptly after a nuclear accident, potassium iodide, in concentrated form, can help reduce the dose of radiation to the thyroid and thus the risk of cancer. In the United States, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission recommends that people living within a 10-mile emergency planning zone around a nuclear plant have access to potassium iodide tablets.
Indeed, virtually all suppliers of potassium iodide have sold out, especially after , the U.S. Surgeon General recommended that West Coast residents stock up
But as I noted [3] yesterday:
Keep in mind that iodide only protects against one particular radioactive element: radioactive iodine, technically known as iodine-131. Iodine-131 has a half life of only 8.02 days [4]. That means that the iodine loses half of its radioactivity within 8 days.
The government hasn't stockpiled much potassium iodide. As the New York Times notes [5]:
Congress passed legislation in 2002 requiring the federal government to supply potassium iodide capsules to people living within 20 miles of nuclear power plants in the United States.
But the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama have not implemented that provision, saying the law allows for alternatives.
Some states have given pills to people living within 10 miles of nuclear plants, or stockpiled the pills for those people.
But given that the government says that only minute amounts of radiation will hit the United States, and given that iodine-131 has such a short half-life, the whole issue may be moot (many, however, do not trust the government's assurances. See this [6] and this [7]). And taking high doses of potassium iodide can be harmful, especially for people with certain pre-existing medical conditions. So talk to your doctor before taking any.
Other Radiation Dangers
While iodine-131 poisoning can be prevented with potassium iodide, there are no silver bullets for other radioactive isotopes.
Obama restricts findings on Gulf’s dead dolphins
The Obama administration has issued a gag order on data over the recent spike of dead dolphins, including many stillborn infants, washing up on Mississippi and Alabama shorelines, and scientists say the restriction undermines the scientific process.
An abnormal dolphin mortality this year along the Gulf coast has become part of a federal criminal investigation over last year’s BP oil spill disaster and as a result, has led the US government to clamp down on biologists’ findings, with orders to keep the results confidential.
The dolphin die-off, labeled an “unusual mortality event (UME),” resulted in wildlife biologists being contracted by the National Marine Fisheries Service to record the recent spike in dolphin deaths by collecting tissue samples and specimens for the agency, but late last month were privately ordered to keep their results under wraps.
Reuters has obtained a copy of the agency letter that states, in part: “Because of the seriousness of the legal case, no data or findings may be released, presented or discussed outside the UME investigative team without prior approval.”
One biologist involved with tracking dolphin mortalities for over 20 years and speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters that: “It throws accountability right out the window. We are confused and ... we are angry because they claim they want teamwork, but at the same time they are leaving the marine experts out of the loop completely.”
Some scientists said they have received a personal rebuke from government officials about “speaking out of turn” to the media over attempts at determining the dolphins’ deaths.
Additionally, these scientists say the collected specimens and samples are being turned over to the government for evaluation under a deal that omits independent scientists from the final results of lab tests.
Almost 200 dead bottlenose dolphin bodies have been found since mid-January through this week along shorelines of Gulf coast states, including Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, Reuters notes. About half of the carcasses are newborns or stillborn infants.
That number is around 14 times the average numbers recorded during the same time frame between 2002 and 2007 and has coincidentally occurred during the first calving season since the BP Deepwater Horizon debacle last year in the Gulf.
Although many of the dolphin specimens recently collected show no outward signs of oil contamination, lab analysis is crucial in helping to determine their deaths.
Some experts believe the recent surge of deaths is the result of dolphins inhaling or ingesting oil during the oil spill, the results of which are just now beginning to show their toll, including a possible upsurge in dolphin miscarriages.
The recent spike in dolphin deaths has compounded the dolphin mortality problem, as scientists were already busy attempting to determine the deaths of nearly 90 dead dolphins, mostly adults, that washed up along the US Gulf coast during the weeks and months after the BP disaster.
Some are questioning the Marine Fisheries Service, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and its delay in providing dolphin samples to laboratories.
“It is surprising that it has been almost a full year since the spill, and they still haven't selected labs for this kind of work,” said Ruth Carmichael, of the independent Dauphin Island Sea Lab, located in Alabama, according to Reuters. “I can only hope that this process is a good thing. I just don’t know. This is an unfortunate situation,” she added.
Officials with the NOAA state the confidentiality measures are an integral part of the current investigation over the BP oil spill.
“We are treating the evidence, which are the dolphin samples, like a murder case,” said Dr. Erin Fougeres, a Fisheries Service marine biologist, Reuters notes. “The chain of custody is being closely watched. Every dolphin sample is considered evidence in the BP case now,” she added.
Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/print/article/305096#ixzz1Hvh1WQdg
An abnormal dolphin mortality this year along the Gulf coast has become part of a federal criminal investigation over last year’s BP oil spill disaster and as a result, has led the US government to clamp down on biologists’ findings, with orders to keep the results confidential.
The dolphin die-off, labeled an “unusual mortality event (UME),” resulted in wildlife biologists being contracted by the National Marine Fisheries Service to record the recent spike in dolphin deaths by collecting tissue samples and specimens for the agency, but late last month were privately ordered to keep their results under wraps.
Reuters has obtained a copy of the agency letter that states, in part: “Because of the seriousness of the legal case, no data or findings may be released, presented or discussed outside the UME investigative team without prior approval.”
One biologist involved with tracking dolphin mortalities for over 20 years and speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters that: “It throws accountability right out the window. We are confused and ... we are angry because they claim they want teamwork, but at the same time they are leaving the marine experts out of the loop completely.”
Some scientists said they have received a personal rebuke from government officials about “speaking out of turn” to the media over attempts at determining the dolphins’ deaths.
Additionally, these scientists say the collected specimens and samples are being turned over to the government for evaluation under a deal that omits independent scientists from the final results of lab tests.
Almost 200 dead bottlenose dolphin bodies have been found since mid-January through this week along shorelines of Gulf coast states, including Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, Reuters notes. About half of the carcasses are newborns or stillborn infants.
That number is around 14 times the average numbers recorded during the same time frame between 2002 and 2007 and has coincidentally occurred during the first calving season since the BP Deepwater Horizon debacle last year in the Gulf.
Although many of the dolphin specimens recently collected show no outward signs of oil contamination, lab analysis is crucial in helping to determine their deaths.
Some experts believe the recent surge of deaths is the result of dolphins inhaling or ingesting oil during the oil spill, the results of which are just now beginning to show their toll, including a possible upsurge in dolphin miscarriages.
The recent spike in dolphin deaths has compounded the dolphin mortality problem, as scientists were already busy attempting to determine the deaths of nearly 90 dead dolphins, mostly adults, that washed up along the US Gulf coast during the weeks and months after the BP disaster.
Some are questioning the Marine Fisheries Service, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and its delay in providing dolphin samples to laboratories.
“It is surprising that it has been almost a full year since the spill, and they still haven't selected labs for this kind of work,” said Ruth Carmichael, of the independent Dauphin Island Sea Lab, located in Alabama, according to Reuters. “I can only hope that this process is a good thing. I just don’t know. This is an unfortunate situation,” she added.
Officials with the NOAA state the confidentiality measures are an integral part of the current investigation over the BP oil spill.
“We are treating the evidence, which are the dolphin samples, like a murder case,” said Dr. Erin Fougeres, a Fisheries Service marine biologist, Reuters notes. “The chain of custody is being closely watched. Every dolphin sample is considered evidence in the BP case now,” she added.
Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/print/article/305096#ixzz1Hvh1WQdg
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Criminal negligence in Japan?
Criminally negligent TEPCO Execs not the Exception in Japan but the Rule
by quin Thursday, Mar 17 2011, 4:24am
A little familiarity with Japanese history reveals a tradition of criminal corruption and deception from the highest echelons of society to the lowest – it’s a way of life! The deceptive and criminal behaviour of directors at Tokyo Electric, which included falsifying safety records and hiding rather than correcting problems at nuclear power plants, stems from a certain privileged class consciousness that considers itself above the law and regards the masses as nothing better than (expendable) serfs.
Apologies from these Corporatists came only after it became obvious that the reactors were out of control and the situation would end in disaster. This hollow gesture was nothing more than a feign, designed to quell the anger of average Japanese. However, it fell short of satisfying the most liberal and forgiving Japanese, as the arrogance of the directors and insincerity of the apology could easily be detected by foreigners – how much more the Japanese! The appropriate course of action is known to the failed directors but they are liars, cheats and cowards and have no stomach for traditional rituals of contrition and saving honour.
Nevertheless, nuclear technology does not fall from the sky and responsibility for the nuclear disaster must be shared with all involved parties.
The chief designers for the Dai-ichi reactors are American; the multinational company General Electric or ‘GE,’ as it is known, is largely responsible for the faulty design of the reactors. However, the responsibility for safety falls directly on the shoulders of Japanese executives and government officials – most of whom, as is now painfully apparent, are less than honest and forthcoming!
So we look to other means whereby justice is dispensed and it seems the old adage, “whatever goes around, comes around,” applies in the case of the massive radiation leaks from the faulty, American designed Dai-ichi reactors. Eastern cultures call it Karma; occidentals call it, 'reaping what you sow!’
In an ironic twist, it seems the poisonous and highly toxic radiation that has been released into the atmosphere from the Fukushima reactors, is heading for North America via natures medium of transportation, the North Pacific jet stream!
Residents on the Pacific coasts of Canada and the US have been frantically buying Potassium Iodide tablets as if it is some miracle substance. But panic turns the most cynical into drivelling believers.
http://tinyurl.com/4h63ln2
by quin Thursday, Mar 17 2011, 4:24am
A little familiarity with Japanese history reveals a tradition of criminal corruption and deception from the highest echelons of society to the lowest – it’s a way of life! The deceptive and criminal behaviour of directors at Tokyo Electric, which included falsifying safety records and hiding rather than correcting problems at nuclear power plants, stems from a certain privileged class consciousness that considers itself above the law and regards the masses as nothing better than (expendable) serfs.
Apologies from these Corporatists came only after it became obvious that the reactors were out of control and the situation would end in disaster. This hollow gesture was nothing more than a feign, designed to quell the anger of average Japanese. However, it fell short of satisfying the most liberal and forgiving Japanese, as the arrogance of the directors and insincerity of the apology could easily be detected by foreigners – how much more the Japanese! The appropriate course of action is known to the failed directors but they are liars, cheats and cowards and have no stomach for traditional rituals of contrition and saving honour.
Nevertheless, nuclear technology does not fall from the sky and responsibility for the nuclear disaster must be shared with all involved parties.
The chief designers for the Dai-ichi reactors are American; the multinational company General Electric or ‘GE,’ as it is known, is largely responsible for the faulty design of the reactors. However, the responsibility for safety falls directly on the shoulders of Japanese executives and government officials – most of whom, as is now painfully apparent, are less than honest and forthcoming!
So we look to other means whereby justice is dispensed and it seems the old adage, “whatever goes around, comes around,” applies in the case of the massive radiation leaks from the faulty, American designed Dai-ichi reactors. Eastern cultures call it Karma; occidentals call it, 'reaping what you sow!’
In an ironic twist, it seems the poisonous and highly toxic radiation that has been released into the atmosphere from the Fukushima reactors, is heading for North America via natures medium of transportation, the North Pacific jet stream!
Residents on the Pacific coasts of Canada and the US have been frantically buying Potassium Iodide tablets as if it is some miracle substance. But panic turns the most cynical into drivelling believers.
http://tinyurl.com/4h63ln2
Japan in the Hands of God
Writes Jay Roberts:
Although I’m in the U.S. at the moment, my family remains in Osaka. FWIW, as a
submarine officer, I went to the U.S. Navy’s nuclear power training and then
operated naval reactors. Following this, I worked in the commercial nuclear
power industry for a couple of years and then moved on to software development.
While my motivations would require a long explanation, let’s just say I’m
neither a booster nor an opponent of the technology but I do have a pretty clear
eyed view of reactor operations and what people do in crises.
I was pretty comfortable with the Fukushima situation for the first few days. If
anything, the fact that they still maintained their integrity after an epic
quake and tsunami is a testament to the design margins built into western
reactors. However, two recent bits of news really gave me pause.
The first was the fire caused by low water levels in the spent fuel pool in Unit
4, which was shut down and defueled for maintenance. Normally, there would be
all sorts of alarms about this, but with electricity gone, one would send people
around to check on things. And with a plant defueled like Unit 4, the first
thing one would want to check would be the spent fuel pool.
This is not to suggest malfeasance though — rather, that the peoplee on site are
completely overwhelmed by events to the extent that they can’t even spare
somebody to go take a look at the fuel pool in Unit 4. One wonders what else may
be going unnoticed.
Â
The second item was that the staffing on site was down to 50 people. Even under
normal operations, this is a small fraction, but in an emergency, where all
power and indications (gauges/alarms) are lost, it is in effect throwing one’s
hands up in the air. This was about 24 hours ago when I read this stuff at which
point I told my wife she should tell her sister-in-law to take her kids, get out
of Tokyo as a precaution. It is an excellent time to visit grandma.
My opinion was confirmed with the recent suggestion of using helicopters to dump
stuff on the reactors, which is clearly well beyond the point of utter
desperation in nuclear ops. If one recalls, this is what the Soviets resorted to
at Chernobyl, shoveling boron out of helicopters into the smoking morass.
Several days ago, discussing this incident with friends, I said that when they
start talking about helicopters, that is when the situation is officially out of
control.
This all being said, there are still some positive shreds of hope.
The first is that time is on everyone’s side. The more time that passes
without devolution into catastrophe the less likely it is to happen. The
residual fission products that cause the heat in fuel rods decay quickly, by
orders of magnitude over the days following a plant shutdown.
The second is that this is not Chernobyl. Chernobyl used a graphite moderated
design that was well understood in the west to be extremely dangerous and had
been abandoned after the Windscale incident. Similarly, there was no containment
structure. This comparison is not apt.
The third is that western reactors were built with huge design margins. Back in
the 60’s, they didn’t have cheap computing power, so tthey would figure out
the numbers on a slide rule, then multiply everything by 4 when designing a
critical component. I was involved in reanalyzing a lot of reactor design in the
early 90’s when we had relatively powerrful PCs with which we could do a more
extensive analysis; everywhere we looked we found huge, unbelievable design
margins. So while things aren’t looking so great at Fukushima, one can be
assured that there is a great deal of ruin in a typical western reactor.
The bad part is that this stout design is all we really have to rely on any more
at the moment. With reactor buildings in shambles, high radiation levels, no
power, etc., there truly is little way to figure out what is going on inside
these reactors to the extent necessary to take actions. And even if this
knowledge were available, the ability to take action at the moment is nearly nil
— after explosions and tsunamis and fires, simply ideentifying which
valves/systems/controls are which is probably an enormous task, and the
consequences of making a mistake are dire.
This one is in the Lord’s hands. It may yet turn out well, and offering a
prayer for those struggling to control this catastrophe might be a way some
readers can help.
Although I’m in the U.S. at the moment, my family remains in Osaka. FWIW, as a
submarine officer, I went to the U.S. Navy’s nuclear power training and then
operated naval reactors. Following this, I worked in the commercial nuclear
power industry for a couple of years and then moved on to software development.
While my motivations would require a long explanation, let’s just say I’m
neither a booster nor an opponent of the technology but I do have a pretty clear
eyed view of reactor operations and what people do in crises.
I was pretty comfortable with the Fukushima situation for the first few days. If
anything, the fact that they still maintained their integrity after an epic
quake and tsunami is a testament to the design margins built into western
reactors. However, two recent bits of news really gave me pause.
The first was the fire caused by low water levels in the spent fuel pool in Unit
4, which was shut down and defueled for maintenance. Normally, there would be
all sorts of alarms about this, but with electricity gone, one would send people
around to check on things. And with a plant defueled like Unit 4, the first
thing one would want to check would be the spent fuel pool.
This is not to suggest malfeasance though — rather, that the peoplee on site are
completely overwhelmed by events to the extent that they can’t even spare
somebody to go take a look at the fuel pool in Unit 4. One wonders what else may
be going unnoticed.
Â
The second item was that the staffing on site was down to 50 people. Even under
normal operations, this is a small fraction, but in an emergency, where all
power and indications (gauges/alarms) are lost, it is in effect throwing one’s
hands up in the air. This was about 24 hours ago when I read this stuff at which
point I told my wife she should tell her sister-in-law to take her kids, get out
of Tokyo as a precaution. It is an excellent time to visit grandma.
My opinion was confirmed with the recent suggestion of using helicopters to dump
stuff on the reactors, which is clearly well beyond the point of utter
desperation in nuclear ops. If one recalls, this is what the Soviets resorted to
at Chernobyl, shoveling boron out of helicopters into the smoking morass.
Several days ago, discussing this incident with friends, I said that when they
start talking about helicopters, that is when the situation is officially out of
control.
This all being said, there are still some positive shreds of hope.
The first is that time is on everyone’s side. The more time that passes
without devolution into catastrophe the less likely it is to happen. The
residual fission products that cause the heat in fuel rods decay quickly, by
orders of magnitude over the days following a plant shutdown.
The second is that this is not Chernobyl. Chernobyl used a graphite moderated
design that was well understood in the west to be extremely dangerous and had
been abandoned after the Windscale incident. Similarly, there was no containment
structure. This comparison is not apt.
The third is that western reactors were built with huge design margins. Back in
the 60’s, they didn’t have cheap computing power, so tthey would figure out
the numbers on a slide rule, then multiply everything by 4 when designing a
critical component. I was involved in reanalyzing a lot of reactor design in the
early 90’s when we had relatively powerrful PCs with which we could do a more
extensive analysis; everywhere we looked we found huge, unbelievable design
margins. So while things aren’t looking so great at Fukushima, one can be
assured that there is a great deal of ruin in a typical western reactor.
The bad part is that this stout design is all we really have to rely on any more
at the moment. With reactor buildings in shambles, high radiation levels, no
power, etc., there truly is little way to figure out what is going on inside
these reactors to the extent necessary to take actions. And even if this
knowledge were available, the ability to take action at the moment is nearly nil
— after explosions and tsunamis and fires, simply ideentifying which
valves/systems/controls are which is probably an enormous task, and the
consequences of making a mistake are dire.
This one is in the Lord’s hands. It may yet turn out well, and offering a
prayer for those struggling to control this catastrophe might be a way some
readers can help.
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