Even as thousands of Japanese workers struggle to contain the ongoing nuclear disaster, low levels of radiation from those power plants have been detected in foods in the United States. Milk, fruits and vegetables show trace amounts of radioactive isotopes from the Fukushima Daichi power plants,and the media appears to be paying scant attention, if any attention at all.(Really? Poor little Number One Fox News is incapable of getting this story out.. It's as if Fox was only able to Critique other media, and had no power of Dissemination of their own. Poor, poor Rupert..)It is as if the problem only involves Japan, not the vast Pacific Ocean, into which highly radioactive water has poured by the dozens of tons, and not into air currents and rainwater that carry radiation to U.S. soil and to the rest of the world. And while both Switzerland and Germany have come out against any further nuclear development, the U.S. the nuclear power industry continues as usual, with aging and crumbling power plants receiving extended operating licenses from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as though it can’t happen here. But it is happening here, on your dinner plate.
Recent measurements on dosimeters and urine tests have indicated that it may be time for certain residents to make some difficult decisions about leaving the area. Fifteen residents near Fukushima have had urine tests that have revealed traces of radioactive Iodine-131. This isotope of Iodine has a half-life of 8 days, so it does not pose a long-term threat as long as it is not ingested. Inside the body, the isotope accumulates in the thyroid. After Chernobyl, many nearby victims developed thyroid cancer as a result of drinking contaminated milk. Just after the emergency at Fukushima, the Japanese government distributed iodine tablets. The tablets were of a non-radioactive isotope of iodine that was meant to saturate the thyroid and prevent any more uptake of radioactive elements.It seems that, at least in a few cases, the radioactive isotopes were not entirely blocked.
The Pacific Disaster Centre says the revelation that the contamination from Japan's earthquake crippled nuclear power plant will be more widespread than previously thought is a big concern. It says nuclear monitoring should be set up across the region to assess the risk. Japan's Atomic Energy Agency says radioactive caesium leaking from the Fukushima nuclear plant will spread 4,000 kilometres through the Pacific Ocean in the next year and reach Hawaii in three years.
And finally, some good news: Just kidding! Another reactor at another plant is still in serious trouble..Japan's 'most dangerous reactor' severely damaged, could become worse than FukushimaNatural News via Before It's News. Excerpts: The Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor, located directly over an earthquake fault line near Tsuruga, Japan, lies on the opposite coast of Japan's crippled Fukushima plant. Last August,a 3.3-ton fuel relay device broke and fell off into the reactor's inner core, which severed access to its plutonium and uranium fuel rods.Experts have repeatedly tried to remove the device and fix the damage, but all efforts thus far have failed. The Monju plant had also been shut down for 14 years following a massive fire in 1995, a nuclear accident that was considered to be the worst one Japan had ever seen, that is until the devastating earthquake and tsunami hit Fukushima back in March. Monju has basically been plagued with problems since it was first built, and because it is "fast-breeder" design, it has the potential to become far worse than Fukushima in the event of another major disaster. According to Hideyuki Ban, co-director of the Citizens' Nuclear Information Center (CNIC), a Japanese nuclear public interest group,the Monju reactor uses highly deadly plutonium fuel, and even if officials do even up effectively removing the lodged fuel device and fixing the damage, restarting the plant could be catastrophic. "Let's say they make this fix, which is very complicated," said Ban to the NYT. "The rest of the reactor remains highly dangerous. And an accident at Monju would have catastrophic consequences beyond what we are seeing at Fukushima."The plant is also located right on a major fault line, which makes the situation even more precarious.
The cuts and tax increases passed 155-138, with five voting "present" and backing neither side. During the vote, stun grenades echoed across a square outside Parliament. Acrid clouds of tear gas and orange and green smoke-bomb mist hung in the air. Several banks and storefronts were smashed, while a Socialist dissenter who backed the government at the last minute, Alexandros Athanassiadis, was briefly assaulted by protesters after leaving Parliament on foot. Violence continued throughout the afternoon, and smoke billowed from a post office beneath the finance ministry before a fire was put out. Rioters set up burning barricades along Syntagma Square, where demonstrators have staged a sit-in for the past month. Nearby streets were littered with chunks of smashed marble and ripped-up paving stones that had been thrown at police. A general strike that began Tuesday paralyzed the country, grounding planes, leaving ferries docked and stranding tourists during the busy summer season.
The Real Deal begins later today. My gut says Austerity measures pass, and Athens begins to ROCK shortly afterward.. If Austerity fails.. The Greek economy goes into collapse, and Athens begins to ROCK shortly afterward. Maybe, maybe not. But the Greeks do like to riot, and they're really good at it.. (By no means is this an insult, either. The No Bullshit political will of the Greek people is inspiring to others living in more complacent regions of the world. It's good to see that spirit alive and well.. Somewhere..)
Greek lawmakers, under the watchful eyes of the rest of the world, are due to vote on a second round of austerity measures that sparked nationwide strikes and violent riots on June 28. The vote will be held later on June 29. The outcome of the vote will be vital for the stability of the European economy and for the future stability of Greece which is facing bankruptcy. Resembling a typical Greek drama, the voting process itself has become rife with accusations of betrayal and treachery following revelations in Greek media that there are mavericks in both camps who could sway the result unexpectedly. .. If the government fails to pass the austerity measures, Greece will go bankrupt. The proposed measures will affect the public sector and will consist of the sale of assets as well as higher taxes and more spending cuts. Massive protests are expected on the streets of central Athens and outside Syntagma Square in front of the parliament building, protests which have the potential to turn violent judging from the past.
Greece's parliament looked increasingly likely to approve unpopular austerity measures on Wednesday, despite violent protests, to secure international funds to prevent the euro zone's first sovereign default. But with the country on the brink of bankruptcy, it remains uncertain whether a weakened Socialist government can push through laws to implement structural reforms and privatisations in a second series of votes on Thursday, and then stick to a tight EU/IMF-imposed schedule for implementation. Many economists and investors still expect Greece to default in the medium-term.
A decade and a half before it blew apart in a hydrogen blast that punctuated the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, the No. 3 reactor at the Fukushima nuclear power plant was the scene of an earlier safety crisis. Then, as now, a small army of transient workers was put to work to try to stem the damage at the oldest nuclear reactor run by Japan's largest utility. At the time, workers were racing to finish an unprecedented repair to address a dangerous defect: cracks in the drum-like steel assembly known as the "shroud" surrounding the radioactive core of the reactor. But in 1997, the effort to save the 21-year-old reactor from being scrapped at a large loss to its operator, Tokyo Electric, also included a quiet effort to skirt Japan's safety rules: foreign workers were brought in for the most dangerous jobs, a manager of the project said. "It's not well known, but I know what happened," Kazunori Fujii, who managed part of the shroud replacement in 1997, told Reuters."What we did would not have been allowed under Japanese safety standards."
About 15 metric tons of water with a low level of radiation(How much radiation? "A. Low. Level.")leaked from a storage tank at the plant on the Pacific coast, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said. Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) said it was investigating the cause of the leak which was later repaired. (Feel better now?) Vast amounts of water contaminated with varying levels of radiationhave accumulated in storage tanks at the plant after being used to cool reactors damaged when their original cooling systems were knocked out by the March 11 disaster. Dealing with that radioactive waterhas been a major problem for Tepco..
Yes, yes it is a big system, which should have been carefully prepared and tested for at least one or two years and they did it in 2 months. A leak was found on a joint of PVC pipes that transport the treated water.In earlier Yomiuri article, 4 kilometer long PVC pipes feed the treated water to the reactors, and TEPCO people were worried about the leak all along. I guess they were too preoccupied with Kurion's zeolite vessels (which require frequent change and system downtime) and didn't have time to test the 4 kilometer long network of PVC pipes.
As part of the ODA (Official Development Assistance) under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a host of aid programs for developing nations around the world,the Japanese national government is going to buy up processed seafood [canned fish, for example?] from the earthquake-affected areas and offered them to developing nations. And: Please keep in mind that this is what the national government (and probably the prefectural governments in Tohoku) wants, and not the fishermen themselves.I'm sure some fishermen will be all for it, but others won't be, as I've read about them who simply stopped fishing when they become aware that the fish were contaminated with radioactive materials.
Tokyo Electric Power Company has begun adding boric acid to the spent fuel storage pool of the No.3 reactor at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant to prevent fuel racks from being corroded by alkaline water. .. Last month, TEPCO found that the water in the pool had turned strongly alkaline, with its PH level reaching 11.2.The leaching of calcium hydrate from the debris is believed to be the cause.
I'm guessing that if more people were involved in the Fukushima cleanup operation, this project would have started last month sometime. It really is amazing(in the worst sort of way) that so few people, no matter their level of dedication, are charged with such a large, life-in-the-balance task, don't you think? Our collective personal, environmental, and planetary health and safety rests in the hands of less than 2000 people, working day and night, with no guarantee of success. To reiterate, there are no guarantees of success, and global catastrophe waits behind the Other Door..
The anti-nuclear watchdog group Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, however, said the fire appeared to be about 3 1/2 miles from a dumpsitewhere as many as 30,000 55-gallon drums of plutonium-contaminated waste were stored in fabric tents above ground.The group said the drums were awaiting transport to a low-level radiation dump site in southern New Mexico.
Lab spokesman Steve Sandoval declined to confirmthat there were any such drums currently on the property.
And: The Wall Street Journal notes that the surrounding canyons also contain radioactivity from past bomb tests:
Authorities also are worried about potential radiation releases from nearby canyons.Radioactive material from nuclear tests was deposited in the canyons decades ago, and if trees in those canyons go up in flames, they could release radiation into the air,said Rita Bates, an air-quality official with the New Mexico Environment Department. That could raise the "potential for that smoke to affect people's health," she added.
Earlier this week, TEPCO tried to fill the reactor 2 containment with water. That didn't work.So, they OPENED the containment and released BILLIONS of lethal doses of radiation.Now they are wondering whether there is any water left in the bottom of the containment. Let's help them. Since the bottom of the reactor is hot enough to melt concrete, and IS melting concrete, and no steam is coming out of the reactor, here's why:
The core of Reactor 2 is still in at least intermittent fission and has melted through the bottom of the containment..So there is no water in the bottom of the reactor.
Now they are going to pump liquid nitrogen into the core of reactor 2.
Click the link. This would be funny if it weren't horrifying..
Ten residents from a town considered a radiation hot-spot were given internal body exams to see how much radiation they had absorbed, according to the Japan Times. The prefecture plans to give the internal exams to a sampling of around 100 people from hot-spots as part of a preliminary study, which will be used to prepare for a wider study of Fukushima residents that could last up to 30 years, according to Asahi newspaper. Roughly 2 million people live in the prefecture. The data gathered from the health checks is expected to help doctors better understand the long-term effects of radiation exposure on the human body, according to the Times. Dilution of radioactive materials at sea is no solution to nuke-plant crisis Mainichi Daily News via Godlike Productions. Excerpts:
There is a feeling in the government that it is shoving the handling of the unprecedented nuclear crisis into the hands of TEPCO, a private company. The government therefore has a weak spot that forces it to listen when TEPCO comes crying about measures to prop up its share prices. Why can the two sides only form a response marked by indecisiveness and reliance on each other as Japan faces this unprecedented crisis? I think it is because the problem is too big, and they can't grasp how far it is spreading and how serious it is..
Just a quick note to you stating emphatically that, thanks to your goddamned, screeching, smashing, and generally insufferable commercial for the Samsung Infuse 4G, I'll NEVER buy aphone from you, much lessany technology; ever. Yes, I hate it that much. You have succeeded in creating an almost perfect In-Your-Face-For-Your-Ears assault on the senses. The spider as visceral level-repulsion is trumped by shrieking obnoxiousness and multiple poundings, and by the end of the ad(If I can't find the remote), my pulse has increased along with my blood pressure, and the whole experience leaves me physically agitated, and spiritually depleted. Samsung has worked Hard at getting our attention.
Problem is, for me, it didn't work. I had to really pay attention to the commercial (I needed to know where to focus my hate..) for the critical information to sink in. The overall tone for the commercial is way too distracting to be effective. Now, your short term feedback might state otherwise, but I'd wager you lost a segment of people who were Neutral/Positive towards Samsung, but not now, really.. And those people, like me, will simply not consider another Samsung anything, as there's more than enough technologies to choose from. No fuss, but no more: Period.
So, I'm sure a lot of people did laugh. But your commercial also created people like me Awesome job. Samsung worked hard, and they got my attention. Too bad.
I've been a tad bit concerned about developments along the Missouri River in neighboring Nebraska regarding the safety of both Ft. Calhoun Nuclear Plant near Omaha, and Cooper Nuclear Plant, near Brownsville.
Washington's Blogis cautiously optimistic about Fort Calhoun, at least at the moment.
And then, there's the related Worst Case Scenario that turns these two nuclear plants into Worst Case Scenarios of their(and our) own./ So if Fort Peck Dam collapses, the recipe for Apocalypse involves massive radioactive release/dispersal, and catastrophic flooding of biblical proportions.
Enjoy your summer. Party hard, and don't forget to update your bug out bag..
It was tempting to believe that China was different. With its command and control economy with some of the trappings of free market capitalism, trillions in reserves, and abundant natural resources, many thought that China would "decouple" from the Western world's problems and sail into a prosperous future. However, despite its long history, exotic names and seemingly strong position, China cannot avoid the rules of economics which have applied to all countries throughout history. And: The Telegraph noted last June: China's chief auditor has warned that high levels of local government debt could derail the country's economy, with some observers suggesting that a number of Chinese provinces are even more fiscally-troubled than Greece. Few countries will come through unscathed when the global economy tanks. And I do think China looks stronger than it actually is..
Recently uncovered evidence suggests that William Shakespeare used marijuana,and now a team of paleontologists want to dig him up to prove it. .. Pipes uncovered in the garden of Shakespeare's home in 2001 showed evidence of cannabis and cocaine.
"There were very low concentrations of cannabis, but the signature was there,"according to Inspector Tommy van der Merwe, who tested the pipes at South Africa's Forensic Science Laboratory.
The evidence of cocaine was also very strong.
"The pipes we tested still had dirt in them which preserved the residues inside the stem and bowl," Van der Merwe said."The readings we got were the same as if it had tested a modern-day crack pipe." .. Sonnet 76 of Shakespeare's poems contains a reference to the"noted weed."
The New York State Senate just passed a bill legalizing gay marriage, 33-29.It now heads to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's desk for his promised signature. The bystanders in Albany are going nuts. Go celebrate!
Officials expected more than 4,000 homes to be swamped, many up to their rooftops, by late Friday as the Souris River surged past its 1881 flood record,rising so quickly that its progress could be seen inching up the side of homes.
Just the beginning of this drama, as the water continues to rise..
While the U.S. media has been occupied with Anthony Weiner, the Republican presidential candidates and Bristol Palin’s memoir, coverage of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster has practially fallen off the map. Poor mainstream media coverage of Japan’s now months-long struggle to gain control over the Fukushima disaster has deprived Americans of crucial information about the risks of nuclear power following natural disasters. After a few weeks of covering the early aftermath of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami, the U.S. media moved on, leaving behind the crisis at Fukushima which continues to unfold. U.S. politicians, like Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, have made disappointing and misleading statements about the relative safety of nuclear power and have vowed to stick by our nuclear program, while other countries, like Germany and Italy, have taken serious steps to address the obvious risks of nuclear power — risks that the Fukushima disaster made painfully evident, at least to the rest of the world.'
An extreme eight-week diet of 600 calories a day can reverse Type 2 diabetes in people newly diagnosed with the disease, says a Diabetologia study. Newcastle University researchers found the low-calorie diet reduced fat levels in the pancreas and liver, which helped insulin production return to normal. Seven out of 11 people studied were free of diabetes three months later, say findings published in the journal. More research is needed to see whether the reversal is permanent, say experts.Type 2 diabetes affects 2.5m people in the UK.It develops when not enough insulin is produced in the body or the insulin that is made by the body doesn't work properly.
The oceans are in a worse state than previously suspected, according to an expert panel of scientists.
In a new report, they warn that ocean life is "at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history".
They conclude that issues such as over-fishing, pollution and climate changeare acting togetherin ways that have not previously been recognised.
The impacts, they say, are already affecting humanity. .. "As we considered the cumulative effect of what humankind does to the oceans, the implications became far worse than we had individually realised.
"We've sat in one forum and spoken to each other about what we're seeing, and we've ended up with a picture showing that almost right across the board we're seeing changes that are happening faster than we'd thought, or in ways that we didn't expect to see for hundreds of years." .. "The rate of change is vastly exceeding what we were expecting even a couple of years ago,"said Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a coral specialist from the University of Queensland in Australia.
Some species are already fished way beyond their limits - and may also be affected by other threats "So if you look at almost everything, whether it's fisheries in temperate zones or coral reefs or Arctic sea ice, all of this is undergoing changes, but at a much faster rate than we had thought." But more worrying than this, the team noted, are the waysin which different issues act synergistically to increase threats to marine life. .. In a wider sense, ocean acidification, warming, local pollution and overfishing are acting together to increase the threat to coral reefs - so much so that three-quarters of the world's reefs are at risk of severe decline.
It seems we are in one of those time spaces I have termed "the in-betweens." This is the moment between breaths, between steps, between thoughts, and between life chapters. If you are impatiently waiting for an answer, a response, a clear vision, a sense of definite movement into something you haven't glimpsed, understood, or captured, you're in "the in-betweens." The trick is not to get hooked into counterproductive emotional and mental states while we're waiting for the unknown to manifest. Whether a minute, a day, a month, a year, or a decade, we find ourselves in the in-between place throughout our lives. It's actually a great time to meditate, contemplate, and understand our larger life mythos, if we don't allow fear, impatience, or frustration to jam our mental and emotional gears.
Many feel like elements of the old have ended, but the new isn't yet manifest. In manifesting a new way to do or be, Spirit works out in specific ways. When we "send out the call," or do an intention to manifest a higher way to be, Spirit always answers, though sometime it is in strange and mysterious ways.
The link between depression and suicide is well documented, particularly in Japan, where depression has been shown to be a major suicide trigger.
Concerns about the possibility of survivors turning to such extreme measures is based partly on Japan's overall suicide rate, which according to the World Health Organization is the highest among developed nations.Suicides in May for the whole nation were 20 percent higher than a year before, according to National Police Agency figures, and experts believe the total for 2011 could surpass 30,000 for the 14th straight year. .. "Survivors, especially those in shelters and temporary accommodations, are at risk of becoming exhausted and depressed, and over time this could lead to clinical depression brought about by the perceived hopelessness of their situation," said Cho, author of the book "Hito wa Naze Jisatsusuru no ka" ("Why Do People Commit Suicide?"). "This would further increase the risk of suicide."
This is especially true of residents in Fukushima Prefecture who have been severely affected by the radiation scare, he added. "Many farmers have lost everything and while the radiation issue remains unresolved they can't predict what the future holds."
A magnitude 6.7earthquake rocked Japan today, the 75th aftershock of at least magnitude 6.0 from the devastating magnitude 9.0 quake on March 11, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The earthquake data is preliminary and subject to revision.
Japan has been rocked by hundreds of aftershocks since the deadly Tohoku earthquake, the biggest in Japan's recorded history. The aftershocks have been so plentiful that the world's premier earthquake-measurement service has since modified its alert system to filter out the smaller aftershocks.The largest aftershock was a magnitude 7.9 quake that struck less than an hour after the main shock. A magnitude 7.7 also struck that day. A magnitude 7.1 aftershock struck on April 7. .. Since the main quake off Japan's northeastern coast, hundreds aftershocks have shaken the island of Honshu, Japan's largest and home to 100 million people. Today's aftershock was caused by thrust faulting near the Japan Trench, the boundary between the Pacific and North America tectonic plates (the huge, moving slabs of the Earth's crust). Thrust faulting happens when one tectonic plate dives under another. In this case, the Pacific plate is diving under the North America plate.
Before the magnitude 9.0 earthquake, only nine magnitude 7.0 or greater earthquakes had ruptured in this subduction zone since 1973.
US-made helicopter was flying unmanned for collecting samples for analysis of radioactive material in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (reconnaissance)has become impossible to steer, and land on the roof of the Unit 2 reactor building, and announced.Smoke is not recognized, the impact on the building is unknown. Consider using a collection of such cranes.
Unmanned helicopter is 50 cm in diameter, weighs 8 kg. Off from the power plant south of the observatory at 6:00 am May 24 at 2:34. Hover by remote control and was planning to collect air and dust near the Unit 2. It has become impossible to pilot crash-landed at about 7:00 am.
Sampling and unmanned helicopters were used to shoot in the building exploded.
Really sad, terrible news for Glen Campbell and his family.. They're all in for a rough time. Unless you know how rough, you don't know. Alzheimer's is the cruelest cut. As for Glen and his family, I'd offer the phrase a close friend likes to say when confronted by any overwhelming situation: "Pray for Grace." It won't be enough, but sometimes it will.
More than three months after the Great East Japan Earthquake and the meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, Tokyo region residents are becoming increasingly worried over radiation exposure as a number of radioactive "hotspots" have been discovered in and around the capital.
Local governments are calling for calm, as annual doses of radiation at the hotspots -- sites where radiation levels are significantly higher than their surroundings -- would not exceed 20 millisieverts as they do in parts of Fukushima Prefecture.Residents are nevertheless calling on their local governments to take some kind of action. .. However, even as radiation hotspot worries mount, there continues to be only one site in all of Chiba Prefecture where radiation levels are being formally monitored, drawing criticism.Local radiation tests performed at primary schools and other public spaces at the end of May revealed a0.54 microsievert per hour radioactive hotspot at a Kashiwa park.The prefectural monitoring post some 50 kilometers south southeast of the park, meanwhile, has recorded radiation doses of only0.08 microsieverts per hour --a discrepancy which has stoked the fears of parents.
Meanwhile, a radiation monitoring committee formed by six cities in the northwest of Chiba Prefecture -- including Kashiwa -- also discovered a 0.65 microsievert per hour radioactive hotspot in a park in the city of Nagareyama.
Stonewalling, denial, and falsehoods. Standard Operating Procedure, right?
GREECE'S prime minister survived a key confidence vote,keeping alive a government bid to avert a debt default that could spark a financial maelstrom around the world.
MPs voted 155 to 143 along party lines last night to back George Papandreou, who now faces a critical vote next week on a massive austerity package that Greece's international creditors have said must pass by the end of June.
He is seeking 28 billion euro (s24.8bn) in budget cuts and new taxes and 50 billion euro (s44.3bn) worth of privatisation of public assets. Unless the new measures pass, Greece will not receive the next batch of bailout funds worth 12 billion euro (s10.6bn), and will face a disastrous default in July, when it runs out of money.
A default by Greece could drag down Greek and European banks and renew fears over the finances of other eurozone countries such as Portugal, Ireland and Spain. And: As deputies voted, several thousand protesters gathered outside parliament chanting "Thieves! thieves!", shining green laser lights at the parliament building and into the eyes of riot police.Continuing strikes by electricity company workers objecting to privatisation caused a second day of rolling power cuts.
This anger doesn't seem to be factored as a tangible power. But it is, and it's just begun to fester.
The sun unleashed a powerful solar flare and eruption Tuesday (June 21) just in time for the summer solstice: the first day of the summer in Earth's Northern Hemisphere. .. Spaceweather.com officials said a moderate C7-class solar flare kicked off the solar storm and triggered a massive eruption of plasma, known as a coronal mass ejection.[Amazing Sun Photos From Space]
"Magnetic fields above sunspot complex 1236 erupted during the early hours of June 21st, hurling a coronal mass ejection (CME) almost directly toward Earth,"Spaceweather.com stated in an alert. "The incoming CME does not appear to be particularly potent; nevertheless, the cloud could trigger polar geomagnetic storms when it reaches Earth on or about June 23rd."
Some unusual solar readings, including fading sunspots and weakening magnetic activity near the poles, could be indications that our sun is preparing to be less active in the coming years.
The results of three separate studies seem to show that even as the current sunspot cycle swells toward the solar maximum, the sun could be heading into a more-dormant period, with activity during the next 11-year sunspot cycle greatly reduced or even eliminated. .. "The solar cycle may be going into a hiatus,"Frank Hill, associate director of the National Solar Observatory's Solar Synoptic Network, said in a news briefing today (June 14).
The studies looked at a missing jet stream in the solar interior, fading sunspots on the sun's visible surface, and changes in the corona and near the poles. [Photos: Sunspots on Earth's Star]
"This is highly unusual and unexpected,"Hill said."But the fact that three completely different views of the sun point in the same direction is a powerful indicator that the sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation."
From Gonzalo Lira. Yet another Catastrophe befalling mankind in the beginning days of its expansion. Excerpts:
So if Greece goes down the tubes, Ireland and Portugal would almost immediately need a bailout:They would not be able to borrow on the open markets the money they need in order to continue funding their governments.
That is, if Greece defaults, the Irish and the Portuguese would suddenly find themselves without the money to fund elementary schools, ambulances, sewer systems, power grids, etc.
So! What is the European leadership doing?
Dithering! They are not approving a Greek bailout—and they are not giving a clear signal that Greece will be booted out of the eurozone, but Ireland and Portugal will be protected. In other words, the European finance ministers who are supposed to “stabilize the markets” are creating the conditions of uncertainty in the markets—
—which only hurts Ireland and Portugal.
Now, why is defending (financially speaking) Ireland and Portugla essential?
In a word, Spain. And: It’s as simple as that. Spain is too big—roughly half the size of Germany. If Spain goes, it will drag down all of the European continent with it—that is, bank failures (on both sides of the pond), a crash of the eurozone as a currency, massive unemployment, a European economy that would grind to a halt—
—basically,the worst parts of the Great Depression.
It doesn't look like Greece as-it-is-now will remain much longer. The inevitability of financial "obligations" versus the needs of the populace will continue to escalate towards violence towards whatever outcome eventually occurs. It's like watching an Impact in slooow motion. Greece is Happening, and the implications of Greece Happening have already begun, too.
The radiation levels at reactor 4 have been preventing workers from entering the structure to conduct repairs. TEPCO also began late Sunday to release air containing radioactive substancesfrom the building of reactor 2by opening its doors.
An estimated 1.6 billion becquerels of radioactive materials were released, compared with 500 million becquerels when the double doors of the building of reactor 1 were opened in May, the Jiji Press agency reported, citing TEPCO.
The operator denied that the releases would have an impact on the environment.
If Kurion's vessel absorbed enough radioactive materials in 5 hours and it should have taken 30 days, as I wrote in my previous post,the water was 144 times as radioactive as the system had anticipated.
If the water actually turns out to be 144 times as radioactive,the Fukushima accident would need a new INES category and should not be placed in the same category (Level 7) as the Chernobyl accident which released only 5.6 million terabecquerels of radioactive materials. Maybe it should be simply called"Level Fukushima".
By way of comparison, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster that occurred in 1986 in the Ukraine, Russia- heretofore the worst nuclear disaster on record- burned for 10 days and cumulatively killed an estimated 1 million people worldwide.The Fukushima, Japan nuclear disaster has 5 nuclear reactors burning, 2 in partial meltdown and 3 in full meltdown- and they've ALL been uncontrollably burning since March 11th.Its been over 3 months and this nuclear disaster remains completely out of control. In fact, some industry estimates cite the possibility that these meltdowns will be contained (optimistically) in 1-3 years, at the very earliest.
The amount and intensity of the radioactive fallout from this particular nuclear disaster willassuredly kill hundreds of millions of people worldwide over time.Japan itself is, of course, the epicenter of this radioactive contamination that has spread out from these reactors.
However, the Korean peninsula, China and nations immediately surrounding the Japanese archipelago will also bear the brunt of a significant amount of radioactive fallout from this disaster.Immediately downwind of this radioactive release, though, is the United States of America and the entire northern hemisphere, comprising the majority of the world's industrialized nations on Earth. Significant amounts of plutonium, strontium, cesium, uranium and a whole plethora of other highly radioactive particleshave already fallen on the continental land mass of the USAand have already entered the food chains and water tables of the nation. In a nutshell, Fukushima represents a literal catastrophe for the human species, plain and simple, there's no other way to put it..
It certainly feels as if we will all find out just how gigantic and tragic the folly of "Safe Nuclear Power" really is, really soon..
Al Jazeera's Tim Friend, reporting from the capital, Athens, said: "The anger is deep and (protesters) resent having to pay the price for the mistakes of others as they see it, the mistakes of banks and financiers."
"The problem for the politicians here is they're being dictated to by the International Monetary Fund and events now taking place elsewhere in Europe with the euro zone finance ministers," our correspondent said.
"They are the ones now calling the shots.The Greeks really are having to simply comply and do what they say."
Crisis point for Greece as it gets loan to stave off defaultWhat will the people do when the banks and government openly defy their wishes? Well, they're Greek, so the logical answer "Take to the streets!." Will this event devolve into riots, fighting, insurrection, or worse? At the moment, Greece's situation looks inevitable, and looks like a Worst Case Scenario no matter the direction.
Everything's getting hotter; everywhere. Greece is just the opening song of the opening act.
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Gawker.com is shutting down today, Monday 22nd August, 2016, some 13 years
after it began and two days before the end of my forties. It is the end of
an ...
Mom Has Stacked Dinner Party Roster
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GOLDEN, CO—Their eyes widening in amazement as the 43-year-old rattled off
the names of heavy hitter after heavy hitter, impressed members of the
Dreesh...
Service Interruption notice
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You may have noticed rigorousintuition.ca is currently down. We're moving
servers. Drew informs me it shouldn't take too long. Perhaps tonight or
tomorrow....
BOOK:
This, ultimately, will be a record of the evolution of my consciousness through life experience. It's a bit of a jigsaw puzzle at the moment, but the archive is close to achieving some form of order.
I'm not sure this.. will have an "end," as much as a stopping point.
BLOG:
I have unusual interests. I seek out alternative news, philosophies, and cosmologies. Heres a sample of my reading life. Thanks for peeking in..
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