Murdoch's people allegedly deleted voice mails from family members to the murdered girl imploring her to get in touch with them (they didn't know she was dead already). The paper then found that the voice mail was filling up, and they wanted to hear more messages,so they deleted some of the current messages for the dead girl, making the family think the girl was checking her messages and was still alive.The paper then interviewed the family who talked about their hope that the girl was still alive, while the paper said nothing about how it had helped create this false hope.
Excerpted from The Guardian..
Then, with the help of its own full-time private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, the News of the World started illegally intercepting mobile phone messages. Scotland Yard is now investigating evidence that the paper hacked directly into the voicemail of the missing girl's own phone.As her friends and parents called and left messages imploring Milly to get in touch with them, the News of the World was listening and recording their every private word.
But the journalists at the News of the World then encountered a problem. Milly's voicemail box filled up and would accept no more messages. Apparently thirsty for more information from more voicemails, the paper intervened – and deleted the messages that had been left in the first few days after her disappearance. According to one source, this had a devastating effect: when her friends and family called again and discovered that her voicemail had been cleared, they concluded that this must have been done by Milly herself and, therefore, that she must still be alive. But she was not. The interference created false hope and extra agony for those who were misled by it.
The Dowler family then granted an exclusive interview to the News of the World in which they talked about their hope, quite unaware that it had been falsely kindled by the newspaper's own intervention. Sally Dowler told the paper: "If Milly walked through the door, I don't think we'd be able to speak. We'd just weep tears of joy and give her a great big hug."
The deletion of the messages also caused difficulties for the police by confusing the picture when they had few leads to pursue. It also potentially destroyed valuable evidence.
For Murdoch,thisis serious. These allegations could be pointing to systemic criminality not only at NOTW, but in potentially ALL of Murdoch owned media. Investigations will spread, and more evidence will surface. I wonder what those investigations will find? Fox News has pissed a lot of people off--Don't you think those people won't want every shred of evidence they can get? How ever will anyone come to a fair and balanced decision without every last shit nugget?
Rupert is now 80, and facing what will probably be the largest and most destructive scandal of his career. In the spirit of Fox News itself, I wish you well, Rupert, in all your future endeavours..
Rumors About Gavins Point Dam FalseAt least on 7/7.. This is an unusually heavy flood season along the Missouri River. And in no way is it close to over. The stress of containing more water than some of these dams have ever held back continues..
Claims of man made terrorism aside, the threat Nature poses to Gavins Point, Fort Peck, and the dam and levee system all along the Missouri River is very real, and should be treated as such. Lest we forget that Ft. Calhoun Nuclear Plant is already flooded.. How badly would several reservoirs worth of water compound the situation at Fort Calhoun?
Come on deteriorating infrastructure: Please continue to hold fast..
Scientists are closely monitoring unusual underground activity that could signal a massive explosion at a volcano dubbed the 'Gateway to Hell.'
The Heckla volcano in southern Iceland is capable of producing four times the debris of the country's last ash-producing blast that caused flights to be cancelled across northern Britain in May. .. 'No eruption has started in Hekla volcano. But it might start without any warning.' said Icelandic volcano expert Jon Frimann. .. If Heckla blows, the amount of disruption it causes will depend on it size and the speed and direction of the wind. (Obviously, experts expect this to be a substantial eruption..)
Both of Iceland's latest eruptions provided warning signs several hours before, but Hekla is known for having a very short fuse.
'Hekla never gives you much of a warning,' said Mr Einarsson, In 2000, it began rumbling an hour and a half before the outbreak of magma, which was actually an unusually long warning. In 1970 we only got 25 minutes notice,' he added.
Sweet. The potential or active catastrophes continue to pile on, don't they? In honor of Hekla resurgence, here's some B-52's. Fuck it; let's dance..
I don't care. I'm sorry a little girl is dead, but in no way, shape, or form is National News. The investigation, incarceration, and trial had no national significance. It has no political or economic impact. It is, however, Hyper-Sensational and MediaSexy As Hell, and concluded its three year run with a substantial chunk of the country hanging on every move, and now, passionately attacking or defending the outcome.
In terms of global significance, Fukushima is way, waaaaay more important. The unfolding collapse of Greece, then Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Italy, and the E.U. is more important. America's continuing economic stagnation-into-collapse is more important. Missouri River flooding and potential Nuclear Nightmare scenarios are more important. Los Alamos wild fire and potential Nuclear Nightmare scenarios are more important.
And yet, day in, day out, breathless condemnations disguised as coverage, a real time television lynchin' that failed to deliver when the verdict was read. Now everybody's talking about their huge, blue judicial balls, and still the important stories continue to go on unnoticed. Fuck, man, this was not the climax the NewsPeople promised. The people that are madabout this verdict are really mad, and the crazies mad about this verdict are crazed. My guess? Someone will take matters into their own hands, and she'll be maimed or dead by Labor Day. Obsessed fans or Avenging Angels, The Crazy Peopleare really riled upby Casey Anthony's very existence.. And no, this isn't wishful thinking, just an estimation based on the level of crazy surrounding the investigation/media circus/frenzy dating all the way back to her public conviction back on Day One.
As an aside, I'm looking forward to Casey Anthony's civil suit against Nancy Grace. Will Nancy Grace sentenceNancy Grace guilty of slanderand the character assassination of Casey Anthony? So much evidence alreadycommitted to tape..
The story will continue, as the media and public hound her every move. If anything, the story might have just begun. Again, why should we care? We're being irradiated every day. But the media got some stellar ratings, so everything worked out fine.
The 33-page brochure underscored that General Electric Co. (GE)'s Mark I containment system was employed at the Fukushima plant, while containing speculation and describing fuel melting in the spent fuel storage pool,which never took place. On its last page, the brochure concluded that Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) apparently had not released most of the information it held. (And yet, it's hard to get worked up about someone smearing TEPCO..)
The leaflet sent shockwaves around Tokyo and Washington, as well as GE officials, who were busy responding to the nuclear crisis.Areva lobbyists stressed that the accident was peculiar to Japan when they handed out the leaflets, hinting that similar accidents would never occur with nuclear plant systems provided by Areva.It was obvious to the recipients of the brochures that they were part of Areva's maneuvering to quash its competitors in the nuclear power business.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy's visit to Japan on March 31almost coincidedwith the distribution of the leaflets.During a meeting with Prime Minister Naoto Kan, Sarkozy made assurances that Japan will recover from the crisis and promised to offer the country his full support.He further requested Kan to deliver the opening speech at the G8 summit meeting starting on May 26 in Deauville, France --marking the first time for a Japanese prime minister to do so. .. Japanese nuclear reactor manufacturers were also overwhelmed by France's marketing strategies.They were effectively overtaken by Areva when the company appealed to TEPCO that it has a better purification system to decontaminate radioactive water released from the Fukushima plant than any other manufacturers and that it could deliver the system swiftly. "We had no choice but to put up with the unendurable," lamented a senior official with a Japanese manufacturer.
After successfully receiving an order from TEPCO, Areva's Lauvergeion stated that the era of low-price competition in the nuclear power business was over, signaling her confidence in Areva's products.She subsequently resigned in late June.
Areva proves they are soulless. Kinda funny, then(if this were a movie, mind you..) that theirdecontaminationsystem is apiece of shit.. Yup. Here in the real world, the joke's on us.
Throughout the months of lies and misinformation, one story has stuck: “The earthquake knocked out the plant’s electric power, halting cooling to its reactors,” as the government spokesman Yukio Edano said at a March 15 press conference in Tokyo. The story, which has been repeated again and again, boils down to this: “after the earthquake, the tsunami – a unique, unforeseeable [the Japanese word is soteigai] event - then washed out the plant’s back-up generators, shutting down all cooling and starting the chain of events that would cause the world’s first triple meltdown to occur.”
But what if recirculation pipes and cooling pipes, burst, snapped, leaked, and broke completely after the earthquake -- long before the tidal wave reached the facilities, long before the electricity went out?This would surprise few people familiar with the 40-year-old Unit 1, the grandfather of the nuclear reactors still operating in Japan.
The authors have spoken to several workers at the plant who recite the same story:Serious damage to piping and at least one of the reactors before the tsunami hit. And: The reason for official reluctance to admit that the earthquake did direct structural damage to reactor one is obvious. Katsunobu Onda, author of TEPCO: The Dark Empire (東京電力・暗黒の帝国), who sounded the alarm about the firm in his 2007 book explains it this way:“If TEPCO and the government of Japan admit an earthquake can do direct damage to the reactor, this raises suspicions about the safety of every reactor they run. They are using a number of antiquated reactors that have the same systematic problems, the same wear and tear on the piping.” .. Onda notes, “I’ve spent decades researching TEPCO and its nuclear power plants and what I’ve found, and what government reports confirm is thatthe nuclear reactors are only as strong as their weakest links, and those links are the pipes.”
Radioactive cesium-137 was found in Tokyo’s tap water for the first time since April as Japan grapples with the worst nuclear disaster in 25 years.The level was below the safety limit set by the government. (Which, I'm sure, is comforting..)
Cesium-137 registered at 0.14 becquerel per kilogram in Shinjuku ward on July 2 and none(?!!) was discovered yesterday, compared with 0.21 becquerel on April 22, according to the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Public Health.No cesium-134 or iodine-131 was detected, the agency said on its website. And: Products including spinach, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, tea, milk, plums and fish have been found to be contaminated with cesium and iodineas far as 360 kilometers (224 miles) from the station.Prolonged exposure to radiation in the air, ground and food can cause leukemia and other cancers, according to the London-based World Nuclear Association.
A worker doing the routine inspection of the site in the morning of July 3 noticed the seawater gushing from the pipe that connects to one of the two temporary RHRS (residual heat removal system) pumps for the Reactor 5. The rupture on the pipe was 30 centimeters long and 7 centimeters wide. .. TEPCO called it "leakage", just like a "puddle" that turns out to fill the turbine basement or reactor building basement.An understatement.
Not a water purification plant or at a waste water treatment plant, but a plant that burns regular, household garbage in eastern Tokyo was found with a high level of radioactive cesium in the fly ashes caught in the incinerator filter.
Edogawa-ku is located at the eastern end of Tokyo. Along with its northern neighbor Katsushika-K, Edogawa-ku seems to have been in denial of the elevated radiation levels throughout the ward,and has only recently (June 18) started to measure the radiation at multiple locations within the ward.
The Edogawa waste disposal plant is located by the Edogawa River that separates Edogawa-ku and Chiba Prefecture. The plant can burn 600 tonnes of garbage per day with 24-hour operation, with 2 incinerators.It's in a mixed residential/commercial neighborhood,with 2 elementary schools nearby, and a nursery school right next to the plant, according to the Google Map. And: As I said above, a nursery school is right next to the plant, and there are 2 elementary schools nearby.
Gary Schaeffer’s grandkids ran to an overlook of Gavins Point Dam. “Ooh, man. Ooh.” Schaeffer followed and looked down in disbelief. A riot of water roiled where he’d spent a lifetime of lazy fishing. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. “Nothing even close.” Eight years out of 10, the 14 flood gates, 40 feet wide, spill not so much as a bucket of the brown water into the Missouri River. Now enough is barreling out of Lewis & Clark Lake to cover a football field 3½ feet deep every second. Water will race through the dam at that record rate, ultimately swamping farms and towns for hundreds of miles downstream, through August.
U.S. military forces landed in Somalia to retrieve the bodies of dead or wounded militants after a U.S. drone strike targeted a group of insurgents, Somalia's defense minister told The Associated Press on Friday.
Censorship in Japan: The Fukushima Cover-upDissident Voice via Xymphora. Excerpts:
Today, “four out of fiveJapanesewant to see Tokyo abandon nuclear power in the wake of the Fukushima atomic crisis…”3But any professional in industry, government or media would have no chance of career advancement if they spoke out against nuclear power.
Japan's leading business journal Toyo Keizai has published an article by Hokkaido Cancer Center director Nishio Masamichi, a radiation treatment specialist. The piece, entitled“The Problem of Radiation Exposure Countermeasures for the Fukushima Nuclear Accident: Concerns for the Present Situation”, was published on June 27 and is consistent with the critical coverage of the Fukushima crisis that has appeared in independent weekly magazines, notably Shukan Kinyobi, which have taken a strong anti-nuclear stance since the March 11 earthquake-tsunami-meltdown, and have repeatedly focused on the dangers of radiation exposure while calling for far-reaching measures to protect those at risk. Nishio begins by asserting that the Fukushima crisis has caused Japan’s “myth of nuclear safety” to crumble. He has “grave concern” for the public health effects of the ongoing radiation leak. Nishio originally called for “calm” in the days after the accident. Now, he argues, that as the gravity of the situation at the plant has become more clear, the specter of long-term radiation exposure must be reckoned with.
The Reckoning has already begun, and will continue to manifest, becoming clearer and more horrible, over the coming weeks and months. The Bombardment continues..
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.
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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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