Tepco Admits It Knew of Problems at Fukushima BEFORE the Earthquake Hit

And all it took was a year and a half of un-relenting pressure!  And then, TEPCO tries to blame the anti-nuke crowd for its own mistakes?  Such a spanking these people need!  Washington's Blog: 

Tepco Finally Comes Clean … But Tries to Blame Anti-Nuclear Movement


Ever since the Japanese earthquake hit a year and a half ago, we have reported on Tepco’s criminal negligence in failing to prevent the Fukushima disaster...

Due to the pressure put on Tepco by whistleblowers, writers and others, Tepco is finally coming clean.

As the Wall Street Journal reports today:

In a stunning reversal, the operator of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power plant admitted for the first time Friday that it had made errors of judgment that contributed to one of the world’s worst nuclear accidents last year.

[Tepco] said in a report that the company failed to adequately prepare for a disaster and that it knew it wasn’t prepared, and yet it did nothing, out of fear for the economic and social consequences.

“There was a worry that if the company were to implement a severe-accident response plan, it would spur anxiety throughout the country and in the community where the plant is sited, and lend momentum to the antinuclear movement,” said the report, explaining what it described as the “underlying reasons” Tepco didn’t have a good plan for such accidents.

That makes as much sense as claiming that American football players should take off their helmets and pads because protective gear implies that football is a dangerous activity.

The Journal continues:

The report represents a shift in stance for Tepco, which had continued to maintain it had done its best to prevent an accident from happening—despite repeated criticism from government and private-sector panels that studied events.

Postscript: While a Japanese Parliamentary inquiry found in July that collusion between Tepco and the Japanese government was the cause of the Fukushima disaster, the American government has long played a huge role in dictating Japanese nuclear policy.

Go to the link.  So many other links to peruse..  But hey, we're all on the same page now, right?  TEPCO knew this was a potential disaster, did nothing about it, a disaster happened, and they've spent the last 19 months deflecting the blame we all knew was theirs.  Now what?

Syrian plane had illegal cargo, says Turkey's Davutoglu

Turkey ups the ante.  Again.  BBC News.  Excerpts:

Turkey has said a Syria-bound passenger plane which it forced to land in Ankara was carrying "illegal cargo".


The Syrian Air plane was intercepted by Turkey and searched over suspicions it was carrying military equipment.

But officials in Russia and Syria strongly denied the allegations and accused the Turkish authorities of endangering passengers and crew.

Tension between Turkey and Syria has been high since five Turkish civilians were killed last week by mortar bombs.

In response, Turkey fired into Syria for the first time since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began last year.

'Air piracy'

Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said "objectionable" cargo had been confiscated from the plane.

"There is illegal cargo on the plane that should have been reported," he told the Anatolia news agency.

He did not specify whether any weapons had been found, but unconfirmed reports in Turkish media said the seized items included boxes of military communication equipment.


The foreign minister said Turkey, which imposed an arms embargo on Syria last year, would continue to investigate Syrian passenger planes flying over its air space.

Both Syria and Russia reacted angrily to the plane's enforced diversion.

Syrian Transport Minister Mahmoud Saeed accused Turkey of carrying out "air piracy" and breaking civil aviation agreements, according to Lebanon's al-Manar TV.

Gaida Abdul Latif, boss of Syrian Air, accused Turkey of endangering her passengers and crew.

"Turkish military aircraft forced the plane to land without giving prior warning to the pilot. The military aircraft were so close that there could have been an accident," she said.

'Spare parts'

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said Turkish officials had failed to inform the embassy that 17 Russian citizens were on board the plane.

"We are concerned that, in this emergency situation, the lives and safety of the passengers, including 17 Russian nationals, were put at risk," he said.
Russia's state arms supplier Rosoboronexport said in a statement it had no information about the plane's cargo, and denied it had any connection with the flight or anything on board.

Earlier, Mr Davutoglu had said Ankara was determined to stop any transfer of weapons to Syria through its airspace.

He said Ankara had received information that the Damascus-bound plane could be carrying "non-civilian cargo".

The Airbus A320 airliner had about 30 passengers on board, far fewer than its 180 passenger capacity.

The aircraft was escorted by two Turkish fighters to the capital's Esenboga airport for security checks.

Turkey and Syria on the brink of all-out war

Tick..  Tick..  Tick..  The Telegraph, via The Extinction Protocol:

October 11, 2012 – TURKEY - If anyone believed that Syria’s bloodshed would stay inside the country’s borders, the events of the last week should have put them right. I’m in southern Turkey, near the frontier with Syria, and this area feels like the new front line of the battle against Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Convoys of Turkish army vehicles ply the roads down to the border and, quietly, civilians are trickling away to safer areas. The reason is simple: cross-border artillery and mortar bombardments have become daily events. Last Friday, I went to the scene of the bloodiest incident so far, when a Syrian mortar bomb landed outside a family home in the Turkish town of Akçakale. By malign chance, a mother, her six daughters and a female relative happened to be outside, making dinner under an olive tree, when the weapon exploded beside them. They were, quite simply, cut to pieces. When I arrived, a severed human finger, covered in flies, was still lying on the ground. Three of the girls survived with critical injuries; the mother, three daughters and the visiting relative were all killed. Since then, hardly a day has passed without the Syrian army firing shells or bombs into Turkey, or vice versa. If another family dies in similar circumstances, the Turkish government will come under immense popular pressure to respond with full force. If the Akçakale killings were to be repeated, I would not be surprised if Turkey retaliated with a strike by troops as well as artillery, possibly accompanied with air power. The country’s parliament has authorised the government to do exactly that if necessary. In other words, Turkey and Syria are close to war. The two countries have been waging a covert, undeclared war since the onset of the uprising against Assad, with Turkey supplying the Syrian rebels and Damascus hitting back by fuelling the Kurdish insurgency inside its neighbor. But we could be close to the moment when this shadow war becomes a formal, cross-border conflict. The lesson is clear: a civil war in volatile region is like a brushfire. Leave it alone, and it will spread. –Telegraph


While the media has chosen to ignore this story, the bad blood between Turkey and Syria continues to grow.  Any bets on which country will stick their ass into the action next?

The Latest Webbot Report Is Out..

So I might not get around to posting.  More compelling reading..  Get your copy here.

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

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?

An Excerpt From The Upcoming Webbot Forecast..

Clif's latest Shape of Things to Come forecast is tentatively scheduled for mid to late October.  This is just the first taste.  Half Past Human:

All humans (and any other sentient beings here on Terra) should take heed of the state of the sun on a daily basis as their personal actions are affected by solar activity. Many thinkers, past and present, have noted that solar activity is mirrored here on earth. When the sun is roiling, as it is now, terrestrial humanity also roils, as it does now. The 'looniness' that can be smeared across large amounts of humanity by solar activity is known by the-powers-that-be, and they will use it for their nasty goals, as they are now.


When the 'solar-looniness' is upon humanity, as it is now, the energetic forces, electrical and other, from the sun, put pressure on individual human minds, such that large scale group behavior is changed. As those humans who are suffering the 'solar-looniness' are un-aware of their plight, they react as though their emotional responses (to perceived reality) are both genuine, and internally generated. Neither is true, but don't try telling them that, or you are likely going to experience the 'solar-looniness' erupting in a human near you.

It seems unlikely that the mass of humans so affected will be able to awaken to the solar-looniness distortions of their behavior, thus the up-coming period promises to be both noisy and dangerous. Therefore, those humans who are awakening to the unfolding nature of reality, will as the data describes, [separate themselves (from the) herd instinct], becoming [explorers (of the manifesting new earth/new cycle)].

We note that the definition (more or less) of 'sanity', is to be 'well adjusted to the world around you'. If said world is itself not well adjusted, disruptive, deceitful, dangerous, duplicitous, and generally in a terrible state, then to be 'sane' is of no rational benefit. Why be well-adjusted to an irrational and degrading situation? Rather the more appropriate response is to choose insanity, and thus not be well adjusted to the global madness. The insane, facing a world boiling with solar-looniness, will navigate, without participating, as the omni-humanity seas react to the solar storms.
To all the 'insane', watching the asylum crumble before your eyes, be aware that 'walking time' is coming. Bare feet ground best. The good view is from the isolated hills. Be seeing you there.

Post Scriptum: please re-read the little article on weather. We are there now.

September 20, 2012

Tens of thousands of Israeli troops in surprise Golan drill. Khamenei: No bending to the West

Sweet.  Armageddon Days are here again!  Debka:

Reservists drafted at no notice, Air Force, Central Command and other IDF units were flown to Israel’s northern Golan border early Wednesday, Sept. 19, for a surprise exercise called by Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz under the codename “National Asset.”


The official IDF announcement tried to downplay its importance, describing it as a “planned, routine event.” However, debkafile’s military sources say the war game is the biggest the IDF has conducted in the eight years since the second Lebanon war on Hizballah in 2006, with tens of thousands of soldiers and senior officers, including the artillery and the air force taking part.

Over the last weekend, witnesses reported heavy traffic of convoys of tank and APC carriers and military vehicles with emergency store markings heading north, just days after the IDF completed a large-scale war game on Israel’s Syrian and Lebanese borders simulating a Hizballah attack.

Since early September, therefore, the Israeli Defense Forces have been in the midst of preparations which have the appearance of readiness for a real war rather than an exercise. Those preparations peaked Wednesday under a codename which signified its goal: the defense of national assets.

Another sign of an impending conflict was provided by US diplomats who Monday began destroying classified documents and sensitive equipment at the Beirut embassy. As Islamist anti-US violence raged across Arab and Muslim countries, the State Department said this was a precautionary measure, without naming any specific threat. The trashing of embassy documents usually signifies preparations to evacuate an US embassy at short notice. It would be imperative in a war situation to keep them out of Hizballah hands.

The official IDF announcement described the exercise as focusing on fire power under the command of chief Artillery Commander, Brig. Gen. Ro’i Riftin and due to end Wednesday night. The rapid deployment of military strength on this scale for a live-fire drill is required practice for an army facing the onset of war aggression.

In the Persian Gulf, the US is leading 25 West European and Arab nations in a gigantic 12-day war game in the Straits of Hormuz which began Sunday, Sept 16. It includes a large-scale minesweeping drill to simulate the breaching of the Strait of Hormuz against Iranian efforts to block oil passage through the strategic waterway. The exercise - entirely by simulated measures - will also drill operations for destroying Iranian naval, air and missile bases in the Persian Gulf area and countering Iranian speedboats aiming to sabotage naval vessels and oil tankers.

Among the participants are the UK, France, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The United States has deployed three aircraft carriers with aerial strike forces. Military sources estimate that when the war game ends on Sept 27, these forces will not disperse but stay on hand in the event of Israel attacking Iran’s nuclear program.

As the exhibition of colossal Western might got underway opposite Iranian shores, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quoted on his official website as saying: Iran will never bend to Western pressure The Islamic Republic, he told a military audience, "makes its decisions solely based on the interests of its people and the country, even if all of the world's powers get angry at its decisions."

It "does not accept the demands of any superpower," he added.
The Ayatollah also accused "Western and Zionist media" of fabricating reports on the biting effects of economic sanctions, hinting that the Iranian economy was not suffering.

Here's some music to listen to while you eat your stockpile of canned goods.  Ladies and Gentlemen, The The:

Japan Times: “Alarming estimate of cancer fatalities… 1 million extra deaths”

The second part of that headline:  "Nobody mentions krypton and xenon that poured from Fukushima plant, says Gundersen — 2-3 times greater than Chernobyl"  Japan Times via Enenews:
[...]

Experts waved away fears about radiation, cabinet ministers scoffed at comparisons to Chernobyl, and the word “meltdown” itself was effectively scoured from the media.

Some observers, however, were quick to hit the panic button. One of the best known was U.S. antinuclear campaigner Arnie Gundersen, who predicted that the disaster would lead to 1 million extra deaths from cancer.
[...]
Gundersen, a nuclear engineer, says [the official release amount is] an underestimate. He puts the release of cesium at about half that of Chernobyl, and says little attention has been paid to radioactive gases, Xenon and Krypton, which poured out of the No. 1 plant in quantities “two to three times” greater than the 1986 Ukraine meltdown. He is sticking to his original alarming estimate of cancer fatalities.
[...]
Gundersen bases much of his assessment of Fukushima on what he learned from America’s worst nuclear accident, the 1979 partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania. As an expert witness during the probe that followed, Gundersen said the official estimate of radioactive releases there was also much too low. “You have to remember, we don’t know how much radiation was released. It’s guys like me who have to calculate it.” His assessment upped the official radiation figure for the accident by five times. “I’m dead sure that’s too low,” he says, adding that he believes the true figure could be 15 times higher than the industry estimate.
[...]
He cites the work of Steve Wing, an epidemiologist who says he has tracked 10,000 extra deaths from lung cancer in the first six to seven years after the accident.

“The same gases (Xenon and Krypton) that caused those cancers leaked out of the containment vessel at the Daiichi (No. 1) plant,” he says. “Nobody is talking about it.” He says the gases quickly disperse and are notoriously hard to measure. Other emissions are more straightforward. Plutonium is heavy and does not widely disperse. Cesium is relatively easy to track.
[...]
Future overheard statement heard just about anywhere in the world:  "Nobody told me Fukushima was this serious!  Why didn't anybody do anything?"    "No;  Lots of experts said Fukushima was serious.  You just didn't listen.  .. And now we're all dead.  The End!"

Armada of British naval power massing in the Gulf as Israel prepares an Iran strike

It's never a good sign to see the phrase "Western leaders are convinced.." in an article about the Middle East.  I'm still going with "bluff" on this one, but everybody's trigger fingers are getting itchier..  The Telegraph, via The Extinction Protocol:

September 16, 2012 – MIDDLE EAST - An armada of U.S. and British naval power is massing in the Persian Gulf in the belief that Israel is considering a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s covert nuclear weapons program. Battleships, aircraft carriers, minesweepers and submarines from 25 nations are converging on the strategically important Strait of Hormuz in an unprecedented show of force as Israel and Iran move towards the brink of war. Western leaders are convinced that Iran will retaliate to any attack by attempting to mine or blockade the shipping lane through which passes around 18 million barrels of oil every day, approximately 35 per cent of the world’s petroleum traded by sea.  A blockade would have a catastrophic effect on the fragile economies of Britain, Europe the United States and Japan, all of which rely heavily on oil and gas supplies from the Gulf. The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most congested international waterways. It is only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point and is bordered by the Iranian coast to the north and the United Arab Emirates to the south. In preparation for any pre-emptive or retaliatory action by Iran, warships from more than 25 countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, will today begin an annual 12-day exercise. The war games are the largest ever undertaken in the region. They will practice tactics in how to breach an Iranian blockade of the strait and the force will also undertake counter-mining drills. The multi-national naval force in the Gulf includes three US Nimitz class carrier groups, each of which has more aircraft than the entire complement of the Iranian air force. The carriers are supported by at least 12 battleships, including ballistic missile cruisers, frigates, destroyers and assault ships carrying thousand of US Marines and Special Forces. The British component consists of four British minesweepers and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Cardigan Bay, a logistics vessel. HMS Diamond, a brand-new £1billion Type 45 destroyer, one of the most powerful ships in the British fleet, will also be operating in the region. In addition, commanders will also simulate destroying Iranian combat jets, ships and coastal missile batteries. In the event of war, the main threat to the multi-national force will come from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps navy, which is expected to adopt an “access-denial” strategy in the wake of an attack, by directly targeting US warships, attacking merchant shipping and mining vital maritime chokepoints in the Persian Gulf. Defense sources say that although Iran’s capability may not be technologically sophisticated, it could deliver a series of lethal blows against British and US ships using mini-subs, fast attack boats, mines and shore-based anti-ship missile batteries. Next month, Iran will stage massive military maneuvers of its own, to show that it is prepared to defend its nuclear installations against the threat of aerial bombardment. The exercise is being showcased as the biggest air defense war game in the Islamic Republic’s history, and will be its most visible response yet to the prospect of an Israeli military strike. Using surface-to-air missiles, unmanned drones and state-of-the-art radar, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and air force will combine to test the defenses of 3,600 sensitive locations throughout the country, including oil refineries and uranium enrichment facilities.


Stay tuned for Fall, 2012!   Chock full of intrigue, surprises, and maybe just maybe, a whole lot of Apocalyptic bloodshed!  Coming to a TeeVee near you!
Can the Mothership just come already?

Further Evidence We Inhabit "Universe B."

Children 'too embarrassed' to pick up books, study says.  Wow.  This sucks.  This situation MUST be reversed.  The Daily Mail.  Excerpts:

According to the latest study, one-in-six children admitted they were too embarrassed to read in front of their friends for fear of being labelled a geek.


Researchers said it was "essential" for children to make time to read as there was a clear link between reading outside lessons and academic achievement.

Young people who read at home on a daily basis are 13 times more likely to perform above the level expected for their age in literacy, it was claimed.

Jonathan Douglas, trust director, called on the Government to back a national campaign to halt the reading decline and “give children time to read in their daily lives”.

"The fact that children are reading less than in 2005 signals a worrying shift in young people's literacy habits,” he said.

"We believe we need to inspire a new generation to read in the same way that the Olympics is inspiring a new generation to take part in sport.

"We need to make reading irresistible. We want to call on families and professionals working with children and young people to make 10 minutes in their day for reading."

The research was based on a long-running survey of 21,000 children in primary and secondary education.

It emerged that 38.1 per cent of pupils read in their spare time when the study was first carried out in 2005. This dropped to 37.7 per cent in 2007, 32.2 per cent in 2009 and 30.8 per cent in the latest poll was completed in 2011.

The research found that 54 per cent of those questioned preferred watching TV to reading.

"These findings together suggest a clear issue with children's leisure time with many children enjoying reading but pushing it out in favour of other activities," said the study.

Of those who did read outside class, 47.8 per cent said they read fiction, down from 51.5 per cent in 2005.

Other forms of reading were also in decline, it was revealed. The study also showed that 57 per cent of children read magazines, compared with 77.5 per cent in 2005; 50.4 per cent read websites compared with 63.8 per cent seven years ago; and 27.9 per cent read comics, down from 50.6 per cent in 2005.

A Department for Education spokesman said: “The findings of this survey come as no surprise and shows that we need to continue our drive to encourage young people to develop a love of reading.

“In a world of so many distractions for young minds, the place of literature is more important than ever.

This societal trend threatens to destroy civilization from the inside out.  We cannot devolve into illiteracy and a mob-mentality chaos.  "Idiocracy" looks less like just a comedy and more like dystopian prophecy:  The logical end result stemming from several generations of BAD Educational Policy and socially-encouraged ignorance.  It's not so far off, really.  We owe future generations better than we're treating them by allowing this intellectual abomination to occur.  We must address this crisis head on.  Yesterday.

Latest WuJo From Clif High

In Clif's podcast, he describes a bit of the already-present and upcoming (various!) complexities of life here on Earth in the upcoming nine months.  He's certain it's gonna get hairy, so don't say you weren't warned.  The good news?  The closer we get to whatever this is, there does to be more optimisim expressed within the data Clif is processing.  Hope for humanity type optimisim.  This is heartening, as more people seem to be waking up.  And not a moment too soon!

Run time is about 56 minutes.  I will listen again.

Note:  When at the download link, choose the top report:  The one that doesn't contain "$300." 

M5.1 hit Fukushima JMA seismic intensity 4 “Live cam recorded Fukushima plant shaken”

I bet that was some serious on-site excitement.  Fukushima Diary.  Bonus "That's a lot of shaking for a 5.1 earthquake!" video of the plant during the quake.