Blair could have prevented Iraq war: Annan

Breaking News from 2003..  Not news to people who read, don't watch Fox News, have a working brain..  Raw Story.

Former prime minister Tony Blair was the only person capable of turning George Bush against the 2003 Iraq invasion, ex-United Nations chief Kofi Annan claimed in an interview published Saturday.


Annan argued in an interview published in the Times that Blair could have changed Bush’s mind because of the special relationship between the two nations and the two leaders.

Annan said he often had contemplated what might have happened if “Blair had said ‘George, this is where we part company. You’re on your own’,” following the failure to secure a second UN resolution.

“I really think it could have stopped the war,” added the Nobel peace laureate.


Annan was UN secretary general at the time of the crisis.

A first Security Council resolution, which offered Iraq a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations passed unanimously in November 2002.

But a second resolution proposed by the US, Britain, and Spain in 2003 that called for action to be taken against Saddam Hussain’s regime was withdrawn when it became clear it would be vetoed.

The US decided that the resolution was not needed before military action could lawfully take place, and the invasion commenced on March 20.

The invasion triggered eight years of sectarian conflict in Iraq, resulting in more than 100,000 civilian deaths.

I'm actually wrong, as is Annan:  Blair might have prevented the Iraq War had he been dealing with almost anyone but George Bush, Dick Cheney, Wolfowitz, Feith, et al..  "Special Relationship" be damned:  The deal was done on this one well before the Neocons entered office.  PNAC, anyone?

Spain Protests: Madrid Barman Alberto Casillas Becomes National Hero for Defying Police [VIDEO]

Great story.  An ordinary man becomes extraordinary by retaining his humanity, defying the police, and protecting those in peril with whom he does not politically agree.  Viva Casillas!  My faith in humanity stands, at least for one more day..  International Business Times: 

A barman that protected demonstrators form police has become a national hero in Spain, after a video of him driving back riot police went viral on YouTube.
Alberto Casillas, 49, prevented police from entering his café in Madrid, as dozen of anti-austerity protesters had looked for shelter from a charge inside the "Bar Prado", earlier this week.

A video posted online, shows Casillas standing in front of the bar entrance, holding his arms out to protect demonstrators telling police: "On my Life, you will not enter! It will be a massacre."

As police stood back, protesters started hugging and thanking Casillias.

"You, you really deserve credit", "it is you that represent us," some demonstrator told him.

Casillias soon became the symbol of the protests against Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy austerity budget plan that is designed to rescue Spanish finances.


People commenting on YouTube appealed for him to run as President and Casillias' Twitter account, opened shortly after the fact, was flooded by messages of gratitude.

However, interviewed by Spanish newspaper El Pais, Casillas revealed to be a supporter of Rajoy's government.

"Let me be clear. I am in favor of the Partido Popular. I am a supporter and voter of Rajoy, but on Wednesday it went too far," he said.

"There were excessive police forces. I am for compliance with the law, but above the law, there is humanity. I did what I had to do, that's all."

Bless you, sir.  The world will need your courageous example in the upcoming chaotic months and years.  Thank you for providing a stellar example of a humane response to evil circumstances.  Casillas=Hero!

Sumatran earthquakes in April were part of tectonic plate breakup

Huge, and worrisome.  Not that anyone will pay attention until the end results manifest:  Big, Bigass, muthafuckin quakes!  The billion dollar question:  When?  Now?  100, 1000, or 1 million years from now? The L.A. Times, via The Extinction Protocol:

Planet Earth may be 4.5 billion years old, but that doesn’t mean it can’t serve up a shattering surprise now and again. Such was the case on April 11 when two massive earthquakes erupted beneath the Indian Ocean off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, far from the usual danger zones. Now scientists say the seafloor ruptures are part of a long suspected, yet never before observed, event: the slow-motion splitting of a vast tectonic plate. The first of the quakes, a magnitude 8.7, was 20 times more powerful than California’s long anticipated “big one” and tore a complex network of faults deep in the ocean floor. The violence also triggered unusually large aftershocks thousands of miles away, including four off North America’s western coast. “It was jaw-dropping,” said Thorne Lay, a professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz. “It was like nothing we’d ever seen.” At first, Lay wondered whether the computer code he used to analyze earthquakes was wrong.  Eventually, he and other scientists realized that they had documented the breakup of the Indo-Australian plate into two pieces, an epic process that began roughly 50 million years ago and will continue for tens of millions more.

Lay and other scientists reported their findings online Wednesday in the journal Nature. Most great earthquakes occur along plate borders, where one plate dives beneath the adjoining plate and sinks deep into Earth’s mantle, a process called subduction. The April 11 quakes, however, occurred in the middle of the plate and involved a number of strike-slip faults, meaning the ground on one side of the fault moves horizontally past ground on the other side. Scientists say the 8.7 main shock broke four faults. The quake lasted 2 minutes and 40 seconds — most last just seconds — and was followed by a second main shock, of magnitude 8.2, two hours later.

Louisiana Sinkholes Merging Together- 14 Plus Bubbling Locations

The situation regarding Bayou Corne continues to deteriorate.  Videos found at Before It's News: 

The other one's at the link.

'Sons of Anarchy' actor Johnny Lewis dies in bizarre double death

Almost at first glance, I've never liked this man.  I never knew why, it's always just been a visceral reaction.  Intuition confirmed:  Turns out not only was he a piece of shit, he was a murderous piece of shit.  You beat a cat and an old lady to death.  Good for you.  I bet that makes you a big man in Hell.  Enjoy your new found street cred, and eternal anal rapes by demons.  Yahoo:

Actor Johnny Lewis, who appeared on “Sons of Anarchy” and dated Katy Perry, was found dead in Los Angeles in what can only be described as a bizarre double death.


A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department tells Yahoo! that the bodies of 28-year-old Lewis and 81-year-old Catherine Davis were found at Davis’ Los Feliz home Wednesday at 10:40 a.m. when law enforcement arrived to investigate a 911 call about a woman screaming. Lewis, whose lifeless body was found in the driveway of the home, is the suspect in the elderly woman’s murder. He allegedly beat the woman to death, became involved in a scuffle with two men at a neighboring house (assaulting one of them), and then returned to Davis’ home, where he fell or jumped off the roof.

According to a report on TMZ, Lewis – who rented a room from Davis – was released from L.A. County Jail just five days before the double death. He had “several cases” filed against him and was recently in rehab, states the report. Further, TMZ says Lewis is also suspected of killing a cat in Davis’ home, which was ransacked.

(Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter) ..took to Twitter on Thursday to address Lewis’ death. “Not sure if folks know this yet, but johnny lewis (halfsack) died last night," he tweeted. "it was a tragic end for an extremely talented guy, who unfortunately had lost his way. i wish i could say that i was shocked by the events last night, but i was not. i am deeply sorry that an innocent life had to be thrown into his destructive path.”


I wonder what Sutter saw, and why he wasn't shocked by this turn of events.  Was he aware he was dealing with a psychopath?  Did anyone else see the warning signs of a future killer?  This whole episode is nauseating.

Buddhist statue acquired by Nazis is space rock

Interesting.  New Scientist.  Excerpts:

One religious statue has a stronger connection than most to the heavens. An 11th-century carving from Mongolia of the Buddhist god Vaiśravana was fashioned from a meteorite fragment, a chemical analysis shows. Its extraterrestrial origins make it unique in both religious art and meteorite science.


The iron-rich statue, 24 centimetres tall, has had a colourful past. It was apparently brought to Germany in 1939 by a Nazi-backed archaeological expedition to search for the roots of Aryanism.

A swastika on the armoured Buddha's breastplate may have been a motivating factor in bringing the statue to Germany. The swastika is a common symbol in eastern culture and decorates many Hindu and Buddhist statues – although the version on the statue is a mirror image of the form favoured by the Nazis.

It's unclear whether the Nazis found anything of unusual significance in the statue, but Elmar Buchner at the University of Stuttgart, Germany, and his colleagues certainly have.

"When I first saw the statue I was sure that it is made of an iron meteorite," Buchner says.

Their chemical analysis of the statue confirmed the hunch. It showed that the concentrations of metals, including iron, nickel, cobalt and chromium, matched the values known from iron meteorites.

More precisely, Buchner's team has managed to tie the statue to a known meteorite – the Chinga ataxite, which fell to Earth between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago near the border between Siberia and Mongolia. It fragmented as it fell, and just two pieces heavier than 10 kilograms were known before the new analysis. The "Space Buddha", as Buchner's team has dubbed the statue, is the third such piece, at 10.6 kilograms.

..
In Tibet, though, meteoritic iron was long known as namchag, or "sky iron", says Buchner's team, suggesting the locals were aware of the origins of the unusual material.

..
That creates something of a problem, says Genge. How did ancient people come to venerate meteorites, or meteorite craters, without witnessing the moment of impact?
"One of the most puzzling examples is Gosses Bluff in Australia," he says. "This crater is 142 million years old, and yet the Aborigines hold that it formed by the fall of the baby of one of the celestial women from the sky. A strange coincidence perhaps."

Space Buddah looks like he's lost some weight.  Good for him!

How Bank Of America Destroyed Football

You just can't make this shit up!  Zero Hedge:

As the NFL torments it players, coaches, and viewers by playing hardball over 'real' referee earnings, the truth of Monday's blown call is coming out. Courtesy of American Banker, we now know that the referee at the center of the most controversial call of the season so far is in fact a vice president for small-business banking at Bank of America in California.


The result of this call was over a billion dollars exchanging hands in Vegas bookies' offices from what was a certain winning position to certain losers, precisely due to just this one call, causing substantial losses for bookies in the process as well.
  Lance Easley - previously at Wells Fargo, has worked at BofA since June 2011 - (we assume) moonlighting as a referee in the Santa Barbara area (officiating high school and junior college football and basketball games). Well done Lance, you have managed to move from the most-hated occupation (bankster) to the most-hated individual (outside of Seattle) in one weekend. Is it any wonder Small Business confidence and uncertainty is so high?   I think this might be the inadvertent event that brings a whooole lot more people into some form of awareness regarding bankers and the banking crisis.  I didn't say it had to be necessarily directly politically relevant, but that it has the potential to strike a collective nerve amongst people who wouldn't normally have political awareness or opinions.  A Banker fucked over The Packers.  That's a pretty direct and effective message to a large group of people who likely witnessed the event live, or endlessly the next day.  Anger over Union-busting scabs was already approaching a boiling point, and the worst referee of all is also a Banker!  That dude's in for a shit-rain, that's for sure..  

Whatever the ultimate outcome, this terrible, terrible call has unified fans of all persuasions:  Packers fans, Union supporters, Union busters like the smelly and balding Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, both Presidential candidates, every late night talk show host, every NFL fan on Facebook..  The direct effect is all very obvious.  The subliminal, though, is itself pretty astonishing:  The most blue collar(and damn proud of it) team in the NFL gets penalized yet again by a member of the Financial Elite, this time it's a bank Vice President.  Not only did their team get screwed, many, many people lost a lot of money, again, due to the incompetence of a bank Vice President.   

The twist that makes this a compelling human interest story is also the twist that re-enforces a hugely negative perception of anything pertaining to banker- or financially-related matters.  No, it might not be fair or coherent, but to those dimly politically aware, it might be a perception that sticks.  And a perception that might motivate those previously unmotivated to register their displeasure.  Or not.  I have no idea what motivates the dimly politically un-aware, and therefore, have no sure way to gauge what might connect with them. 

And no, I'm not calling all football fans dimly politically unaware, by any stretch.  I am calling the dimly politically unaware from those ranks dimly politically un-aware.

Strange Unknown Flying Object over Draa, Syria – Sept 21, 2012

From The Truth Behind The Scenes:

This amazing video of a UFO was filmed on September 21, 2012 around 11:30 Pm over Draa, Syria.


The country is in war, but this thing is not an airplane or helicopter. It has no sound and it appeared for few minutes and then vanished in thin air.

From a safe distance, they watch and wait.

Third steel beam found beside the fuel rack. Tepco “Fuel assemblies may be damaged”

Here we go..  My gut says this is worse than they want to admit; so they won't:  Until they must.  Fukushima Diary:

As to the latest accident in reactor3, Fukushima Diary reported Tepco found 2 steel beams in SFP3.


(cf. [Reactor3] Underwater video, “Two steel beams were found in the pool”)

After this article, Tepco found another steel beam in the pool, now they are considering the possibility that the fuel assemblies are damaged.

So far, Tepco finished investigating the 1/8 of the pool and found 3 steel beams in total. One of the 3 steel beams was found beside a rack of fuel assemblies.

Tepco still hasn’t verified the dropped steel beam.

They have been stating there is no change in the radiation level in the pool water and no change of the water level, which suggests the state of the pool and fuel assemblies were sound, but they are starting to suggest the possibility that fuel assemblies were damaged.

With TEPCO, it always starts with a hint, a suggestion..  A Possibility.  Then, and only then, does the Admission come forth.  Take your time, guys, we're only being irradiated, here..

Texas Brine blames tremors for cavern failure

It's time for another round of Corporate Ass Covering..  Who to believe?  Geologists and officials from the Department of Natural Resources, or a corporation that would be financially and criminally liable for any present or future damage resulting from their negligence?   SF Gate:

Tremors recorded in Assumption Parish since late May could explain why a brine cavern failed and caused a massive sinkhole that prompted more than 100 evacuations nearby, officials said Tuesday.

That assessment came from the Texas Brine Co., a Houston-based company that plugged and abandoned the cavern in 2011. The company harvests brine — water saturated with salt — which is used in industrial manufacturing.

But officials at the U.S. Geological Survey say the cavern's failure caused the tremors — not the other way around.

Texas Brine Co. spokesman Sonny Cranch said earthquakes recorded near the Napoleonville salt dome two months before the sinkhole appeared could have damaged the abandoned brine cavern. He noted the tremors concentrated around the sinkhole a few days before it rapidly expanded from a few feet of muck to an acre of sludge that swallowed cypress trees.

"The conclusion at this point is that the damage could very well have been caused by seismic activity that's been going on," he said.

Federal officials disagree. William Leith, coordinator of the earthquakes hazards program at USGS, said that the earthquakes are rare in Louisiana and that the vibrations in Assumption Parish did not lead to the cavern's damage or the sinkhole.

"We believe that the tremors are a result of the collapse of the cavern," he said.

Experts brought in by Texas Brine believe the tremors originated thousands of feet away from the face of the dome and at a substantial depth, Cranch said.

Cranch said a tool used to measure the depth of the cavern bottomed out 1,300 feet higher than anticipated. The cavern was last measured when it was abandoned.

Cranch said the presence of the material hit by the tool indicates the cavern failed.

"That material should not have been there. But the debris, the material at the bottom of the cavern does speak to damage," he said.

Parish officials also say they aren't buying the explanation that tremors caused damage to the brine cavern and are waiting for an official explanation from scientists.

"Who's to say the breach in the salt dome didn't cause the seismic activity? It's just questionable. We're not ruling anything out at this point," said Assumption Parish Police Jury spokeswoman Kim Torres.

Louisiana Commissioner of Conservation James Welsh said Texas Brine's "unilateral declaration" that seismic activity breached the cavern was made without consulting state agencies or the Science Work Group that was created to investigate the slurry area. Welsh is requiring Texas Brine to provide all data and analyses to the Office of Conservation.

"Texas Brine has elected to let its own interests guide a premature conclusion lacking sufficient supporting analysis....the investigation and the remediation for environmental damages will be driven by the best science available and carried out to standards set by the state of Louisiana to ensure the safety of the Bayou Corne community — and will not be driven by Texas Brine's timetable or concerns about corporate liability," Welsh said in a statement.

Around 150 homes between the Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou communities south of Louisiana Highway 70 South were evacuated after Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency in the parish when it appeared the slurry area was expanding.

Several weeks before the sinkhole emerged, residents had also been reporting natural gas bubbling in nearby waterways. Parish officials say aerial photographs taken Saturday indicate the area is more than 400 feet across and 100 feet wider than it was a month ago.

Cranch said Texas Brine will continue to provide weekly housing assistance checks to the evacuated residents.

Corporations aren't people, but they sure are assholes.

China/Japan FutureWar: Now Taiwan Wants In!

Now Taiwan Is Also Claiming The Senkaku Islands: 70 Fishing Boats Set Sail To Stake Claim.  The only sane motivation I can think of here is that this is a defensive move.  Taiwan wants to be able to take a shot at whoever might take a shot at them, or they don't want to be "innocent bystanders" if the dispute goes down twisted.

Imagine any John Woo climactic gunfight between three entities, all holding two guns, each pointing at everyone else.  The huge difference?  No one has fired even a single shot: Not yet.  So, what we got here is, for the moment, a peaceful but tense Taiwanian Standoff..  Zero Hedge:

If you thought it was complicated when "only" China and Japan were disputing the recent escalation in property rights over who owns those three particular rock in the East China Sea, to be henceforth called the Senkaku Islands for simplicity's sake because things are about to get far more confusing, here comes Taiwan, aka the Republic of China, not to be confused with the People's Republic of China for the simple reason that the latter officially asserts itself to be the sole legal representation of China and actively claims Taiwan to be under its sovereignty, denying the status and existence of ROC as a sovereign state (yet one which benefits from US backing), to also stake its claim over the disputed Senkaku Islands. (Epic run-on sentence, yeah?) It has done so in a very confusing manner: by replicating what it thinks China did some days ago when an "armada" of 1000 fishing boats set sail in an unknown direction and which the trigger happy media immediately assumed was in direction Senkaku. It subsequently turned out that this was not the case and as we reported, "China's fishing season stops every year in June-September in the East China Sea, where the islands are located. This year, the ban was lifted on Sunday." In short the (PR)China fishing boat amrada was not headed toward the Senkakus. Taiwan however did not get the memo, and as NKH reports, "several dozen Taiwanese fishing boats have set sail for the disputed Senkaku islands in the East China Sea, to claim access to their fishing grounds."


So to summarize: a country which (PR)China claims does not exist and is under its own sovereign control, has replicated what it thought was (PR)China's strategic move to reclaim the Senkaku Islands (which was nothing of the sort), and is sending its own fishing boat armada to reclaim islands whose ownership has sent Japan and (PR)China on the verge of more than mere diplomatic warfare. The only thing that could make this any more confusing is if someone discovered title deeds ceding ownership of the Senkakus to Japan, the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China at the same time, and signed by Linda Green. 

If this scenario wasn't such an expressway to World War 3(or 4), it'd be hilarious.   Based on the action so far, they all want to be perceived as wanting to fight much more than they really do.  I'm hoping a "diplomatic solution" is in the near-term future.  But, as with anything else during this Grand Irrationality, shit can spiral out of control really fast. It just takes one mistake, and everything changes..

How To Deal With The General Weirdness of The Grand Irrationality

Marijuana Compound Found Superior To Drugs For Alzheimer's

Newsflash from Universe A:  THC prevents Alzheimer's!  Green Med Info. Excerpts:

Could the active ingredient in marijuana, responsible for its characteristic "high," help turn the tide against the accelerating Alzheimer's epidemic?


A remarkable study published in the journal Molecular Pharmacology in 2006, found that this long vilified plant contains a compound with not one, but two therapeutic properties ideal for addressing both the surface symptom (memory problems) and root cause (brain plaque) of Alzheimer's disease.[i] This is an ironic finding, considering that the prevailing stereotype is that using marijuana "fries" the brain, leading to debilitating memory issues.

Researchers discovered that the psychoactive component of marijuana, Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), both "competitively inhibits the enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE) as well as prevents AChE-induced amyloid β-peptide (Aβ) aggregation."

On the first account, THC's ability to inhibit the AChE enzyme, is not unlike the mechanism of action behind most Alzheimer's drugs on the market today. Drugs like donepezil (trade name Aricept), for instance, by targeting and inhibiting the brain enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE), result in an increase in brain levels of this neurotransmitter, which in turn, results in symptom reduction, i.e. improved memory. Donepezil, however, is riddled with controversy due its well-known association with seizures, which likely reflects its intrinsic neurotoxicity. It is, in fact, a chemical in the same general chemical class as venom, insecticides and chemical war agents, such as nerve gas.

On the second account, THC's ability to prevent the acetylcholinesterase-associated amyloid β-peptide (Aβ) aggregation, i.e. brain plaque, indicates that it may, as the researchers noted, "directly impact Alzheimer's disease pathology." In fact, they found "Compared to currently approved drugs prescribed for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, THC is a considerably superior inhibitor of Aβ aggregation, and this study provides a previously unrecognized molecular mechanism through which cannabinoid molecules may directly impact the progression of this debilitating disease."

Let's see:  Anti-Nuke, Pro-Peace, Pro-Pot..  The Hippies certainly seem to be on a global roll, don't they?  Too bad nobody seems to be listening..  Maybe that will change when the Mothership arrives!

Mysterious Baltic Sea Object analyzed so far – Sept 23, 2012

Jonesing for the latest Baltic Anomaly update?  Me too!  The Truth Behind The Scenes:

Swedish seafaring treasure hunters Ocean X Team made headlines last year with the accidental discovery of a mysterious circular object at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.


Now, thanks to more exploration and a laboratory analysis of stones on and around the object, they’re a step closer to lifting the veil on the mystery.

The stones that lay on the object turned out to be red granite which came with the ice age. Dennis Åsberg’s theory is when the ice melted, the stones landed on the object.That would mean it should have been there more than 140 000 years.

Recent examination of the object has revealed a hole about two meters in diameter and that the object is not anchored to the ground.

Dennis Åsberg: ”We have discovered that the object is separated from the ocean floor it’s laying on a ridge, we’ve investigated the object with the ROV robot and looked at the object from below. One can see that the bottom and the object is separated. ”

The material of the object is too hard, so it has not been possible to remove anything from it yet, says Dennis.

But they have managed to bring up some stones that have been on and around the anomaly for analysis.

The team have also found many black magma-like stones at the site.

The theory is that the object must have been at a very high temperature at some point. This caused stones in its vicinity to become charred.

Dennis Åsberg: ”As I see it, when we’ve been and looked at it, it looks really strange to me, it looks like something is designed, in that we have these angles, 90 degree angles, the aisles of the object.”

Dennis hopes that their next expedition will be in spring when the frigid Nordic weather has improved.

Next Spring?  I can't wait that long!  Here's the video:

UFO Twofer..

Seriously:  What do you think these are?  Two from The Truth Behind The Scenes:

UFO near the Sun – Strange explanation NASA – Sept 22, 2012


According to NASA, it’s the planet Venus.

Venus has a regular round sphere and the characteristic glow and is moving toward the sun.

Instruments Observations COR2.

Pay attention to the geometry of Mercury and Venus. This is not a sphere, it should be.

This is a complex structural formation. The planet can change its shape? This is very strange.


But most people believe NASA and does not pay any attention to these anomalies. After reviewing the video to the end, you will see the image through the filter, and zoom.

UFO Fleet starting from a Secret Alien Moonbase – September 2012

Extraterrestrial presence on the Moon?


While filming the moon on september the 15th 2012 with a Canon EOS 600D i and Skymaster 1200mm focal length telescope + Adapter, R3alworld spotted 13 orbs most likely starting from a secret alien Moonbase.

R3alworld edited the raw footage and used different colors to get a better look of these objects.

Quick thought:  What if NASA was telling the truth, and Mercury and Venus were reacting to a solar emission?  That would be weird, right? Go back and look at the first video with that in mind..   Huh.

Yet Another Fukushima FUBAR..

25-foot-long metal beam drops into Reactor No. 3 pool at Fukushima — Not clear if any fuel rods have broken — Could further complicate removal efforts.  Just in case you might be thinking TEPCO had this still ongoing, potential nuclear cataclysm under control..  Fuck, man..  Enenews:

From EXSKF:

TEPCO announced on September 22 that a steel frame weighing about 470 kilograms dropped into the Spent Fuel Pool of Reactor 3 during the debris removal operation of the Reactor 3 building [...] So far, there is no major increase in radiation levels nearby, TEPCO says.
According to TEPCO, the accident happened at 11:05AM on September 22 when [EXSKF: the crane operator] tried to grab a piece of debris, an H steel lying next to the Spent Fuel Pool on the 5th floor of Reactor 3 building and failed. The H steel slid into the Spent Fuel Pool.

From Russia Today News Line:

A huge metal beam was dropped into a spent fuel pond at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Workers were trying to extract cement wreckage [...] The crane boom accidentally pushed a metal beam into the pool from its casing, reports ITAR-TASS news agency. [Tepco] says the metal construction, 7.3 meters [~25 feet] in length and weighing 470kg, did not cause any breach in the cooling system, but could complicate further retrieve of spent nuclear rods.

From The Voice of Russia: 

Reports say it was accidentally dislodged from its place by a crane.

Fortunately, no one was hurt in the incident. It is not yet clear whether any of the spent rods has been broken.

Barring any significant damage other than a massive explosion or an event they can't hide, TEPCO won't tell us for at least another six months.  That seems to be Standard Operating Procedure for these knuckleheads, even before the earthquake.. 

Louisiana Sinkhole Grows To Four Acres

Here's the latest.  Breakdown delays drill in sinkhole probe  The Advocate.  Excerpts:

..
The sinkhole was found Aug. 3 in Texas Brine swampland property between the Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou communities south of La. 70 South, prompting the evacuation of residents from about 150 homes in the vicinity. The sinkhole appeared after two months of natural gas releases in area waterways and earth tremors, both of which have continued.


The sinkhole, which has grown larger as dirt and trees on its rim have sloughed off and fallen into the water since it emerged, including this week, is now about 475 feet across and an estimated 4 acres in size, according to new parish dimensions.

The Louisiana Department of Natural Resources ordered the well be drilled after scientists suspected a nearby company salt cavern in the Napoleonville Dome failed, released its brine contents and caused the sinkhole.

John Boudreaux, director of the parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said Friday’s mechanical failure involved a mud pump near the bit at the tip of the drill pipe.

He said the failure forced the entire drill pipe to be removed Friday so the bit and pump could be replaced and reinserted in the drill hole, which has reached 3,180 feet in depth. The bit had reached a point about 300 feet above the cavern roof, Texas Brine officials said.

The videographer recorded two men at the site of the sinkhole.  That's it?  Two guys?  Shouldn't the EPA be studying the fuck out of this thing?  Also:  There's still no coherent crisis response from any of the parties involved.  Anything else you can tell us, other than "Mud pump broke!,"?  Anything?  Anyone?