Metacognitive Defibrillator & Nutwerx Squirrelizer; Surrealist Review of the World Nest (v2.3); Unofficial recycler of the disposable society; anti-judeo-christo-islamo-fascist-zombie-brigade resistance cell; Twenty Three Thousand Armed Buddhas; Nanobeachhead of Optimysticism; & future home of the manned mission to dwarf planet Eris. Nothing to see here, people; move along. Do not attempt to adjust your monitor. We control the html; we control the css. Submitted for your perusal. WTFWIT?
Birdhairjp visits the three cities of Koriyama, Nihonmatsu, and Fukushima to conduct radiation measurements at elementary schools and public parks 55 to 60 km from Fukushima Dai-Ichi as the cherry blossom front moves through. Past measurements have been made in many places, including Namie (65μSv/h), Kashiwa (9μSv/h) and Tokyo (2.35μSv/h at Minami-Katsushika H.S.).
The results at ground level are horrible. Although these may be hot spots, they are in public areas. The results at chest height (1.4, 0.81, 0.56μSv/h) are not terribly good either.
▶ April 16, 2012
The Perils of Technological Hubris
Nuclear Titanics
by KARL GROSSMAN
On the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, The Japan Times
yesterday ran an editorial titled “The Titanic and the Nuclear Fiasco”
which stated: “Presenting technology as completely safe, trustworthy or
miraculous may seem to be a thing of the past, but the parallels between
the Titanic and Japan’s nuclear power industry could not be clearer.”
“Japan’s nuclear power plants were, like the Titanic, advertised as
marvels of modern science that were completely safe. Certain
technologies, whether they promise to float a luxury liner or provide
clean energy, can never be made entirely safe,” it said. It
quoted from a piece by Joseph Conrad written after the Titanic sank in
which he noted the “chastening influence it should have on the
self-confidence of mankind.” The Japan Times urged: “That lesson should
be applied to all ‘unsinkable’ undertakings that might profit a few by
imperiling the majority of others.”
http://kiikochan.blog136.fc2.com/blog-entry-1556.html
A blogger's summary of a TV report (Feb 24, 2012): Black lichens of
1,000,000 becqerel/kg. They have these at Chernobyl, too. It seems to
get energy from radiation.
If you google the term 黒い物質 (black substance) it tends to come up.
I respect his decision to live free, but i think his call to
decontaminate such a large area is hopeless and wasted effort. Time will
deal with it. People should leave. Farmers should be compensated
with new farms elsewhere, as the population is falling and the
countryside is being abandoned. Then they can farm without compromised
produce or stigma. (As it is now, the government buys contaminated rice
grown anywhere outside the prohibited zone and charges TEPCO, so all
consumers pay the cost of continued attempts to farm in Fukushima
prefecture.) Contaminated soil should be covered with less contaminated
soil brought in from elsewhere. Cover 120μSv/hr soil with 37μSv/hr soil
brought in from less contaminated areas, and so on.
Japan's controversial Hamaoka nuclear plant, shut down after Fukushima, wants to reopen once a 54-ft.-high, mile-long wall is finished. But the plant also sits on a seismic fault line, raising more than a few doubts.
Since
a tsunami wrecked the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant a year ago,
leading to meltdown in three of its reactors, all eyes in Japan have
been on the Hamaoka plant, 300 miles down the coast and similarly
located right on the seashore. It has been branded the most dangerous
nuclear power station in the world by some seismologists.
Its
operator, Chubu Electric, is determined to reopen the plant as soon as
its workers have finished building a six-ft.-thick anti-tsunami wall
that will stand 54 feet above sea level and stretch a mile; the manmade
hills now being constructed are a first step in the yearlong project.
But many local residents are not so sure.
“I was always a little worried before last March,” says Fumio
Takahashi, a real estate agent who lives in the town of Omaezaki, hard
by the Hamaoka plant. “Now I realize that it is dangerous to have a
nuclear plant near your home. I absolutely do not want it to reopen.”
Hamaoka is particularly dangerous, explains Yoshika Shiratori, because
it is built on a seismic fault line where Japanese government experts
have estimated that there is an 87 percent chance of a magnitude 8
earthquake within the next 30 years.
Hamaoka Nuclear Power Station Exhibition Center has a scale model of an actual nuclear reactor, the walls, fuel rods, assemblies, containments, etc so you can get a feel for it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgMaAFdkm5Q
Video #1
saves you going all the way to Shizuoka
2011-05-02-13:40 status: monitoring radioactive iodine.
Units 4 and 5 (boiling water reactors) were still in operation on that day!
Video #2. My compliments to the videographer! Thanks, dude! Good job!
#3 gets opinionated at 8:30 and includes the PM's order to close the plant on May 6.
Buddhist federation speaks out against nuclear power http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/people/AJ201203210053 The Japan Buddhist Federation has called for a society that does not depend on nuclear power not to repeat the mistake Buddhist organizations made…
Nuclear Engineer Arnie Gundersen: Fukushima Meltdown Could Result in 1 Million Cases of Cancer
The Obama administration is backing an expansion of nuclear power plants, but…
"I’m on record as saying that we should close the 23 reactors with the Mark I design. … These containment vents prove to fail three times out of three. …
In addition, the fuel is stored on the roof, essentially, in unshielded, unprotected areas. And there’s more nuclear cesium-137 in the fuel pool at the plant in Pilgrim, Massachusetts, than was ever released by every nuclear bomb ever exploded in the atmosphere. So we have an enormous inventory of nuclear material way up on the roofs of these buildings, and I think it’s time to close these Mark 1s down, because of those two design features."
Video isn't very good at capturing an earthquake, but in some cases you get an expressive imprint.
70th floor of the Landmark Tower in Yokohama. Hundreds of miles from the epicenter, but still...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n--60WNpKXU
3.11に横浜ランドマーク展望レストラン
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26cDWmeSH-s Miyagi. Since I was underground⇒outside I sometimes wonder what people inside felt. This building makes a surflike sound as it accelerates and you hear the crowd responding to the rollercoaster sensations (2-3g in some places).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8W3AqfOlwk It's never a good idea to head down to the river to watch the tsunami come in, but our videographer seems to get just enough time to react to each escalation (with accompanying nonverbal grunts) and ends up OK atop maybe some playground equipment (?) at Minami Kessennuma Elementary School. 津波を見に行ったら流されそうになったので近くの学校へ退避
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIR7MvPjY9s Going back home to the seaside in Namie where she was born and raised, 5K from the plant, 7 months after. 【東日本震災から7ヵ月】福島県浪江町の海岸沿い＊私の生まれ育った海 震災7ヵ月後の福島県浪江町請戸地区。福島県第一原発からおよそ5キロ地点です。
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cv5c66osXY Cows inside the 20K perimeter in October '11. 福島第一原発から２０ｋｍ圏内の牛達が道路を闊歩 2011/10/2 一時帰宅した時に撮影した野良と化した牛達です。
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPnVglzxg8g He finds the hottest spot at his house in Fukushima City is the rainwater drain at 14.5μSv/h (alarm goes off above 10μSv/h) and he wonders if that will be OK when it only falls to half that after 30 years... 放射線量測定器のアラームが鳴り止まない～ 福島市渡利 撮影2011年6月8日 福島市渡利の自宅庭の雨水の溜まり場所では、最高放射線量が14.5μSv/hに達し、放射線量測定器の10μSv/hオーバーを注意
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu69Q0suq0Y Asphalt is bad but moss is worse -- in Namie. 放射能汚染浪江町津島 原発利権屋が許せないですね。山奥の農民に何の罪があるのでしょうか？
Song set to SCRAP musician Nobu's pics of his abandoned hometown of Namie, including what looks like suiting up and going back in to extract belongings from his apartment.
http://www.wbez.org/worldview/2012-02-23
About the 67 nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall islands, including
"Bravo" which was 1000 times the size of the Hiroshima bomb and the US
govt's deliberately planned (proven by USDOE documents) exposure
of the Marshall Islanders who recvd 9 lifetimes of radiation exposure.
Over an inch of snow-like radioactive fallout (vaporized coral) fell.
Burned, hairless irradiated islanders evacuated after 2-3 days. Listen
from minute 6. Extremely racist govt archive audio from minute 13.
How Tohoku, Kanto, Hokkaido, TEPCO, Kansai, Okinawa, other countries, and politicians see the spread of contamination. This is very accurate. Origin unknown.
Our house and garden seems to be around 0.11-0.14 microsieverts/hr, according to my friend's dosimeter. It's lower as you go up closer to the roof and eaves, not higher as with some houses. Inside is not much different than outside. We tested the sandbox in the park and at the daycare next door, and it was about the same.
He has found 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4 in Chiba. In one case a house in Matsudo had those numbers for the first, second floor, and eaves, respectively. There is a spot along the river in Noda-shi where he measures 0.4. The hot spot in Andersen Park was 0.5 microsieverts/hr. Reality is about 3 times the silly numbers the gov't reports as seen at http://www.japantimes.co.jp/radiation-levels.html
I don't really need to strip all organic material and topsoil from the garden, because it is not any more or less radioactive than the surrounding area, and it would eventually become the same anyway. And if i did collect radioactivity in my rain catchment system, it was probably radioactive iodine, which would have decayed by now. Hot spots which exist in Chiba are about 6 miles or 10k north of here.
Radiation spread reaches Chiba, Saitama prefectures - AJW by The Asahi Shimbun
» In Chiba Prefecture, the highest levels of cesium-137, between 30,000 and 60,000 becquerels per square meter, were detected in northern areas, such as Kashiwa, Matsudo, Abiko and Nagareyama. Cesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years. In the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident, areas with 37,000 becquerels or more of radioactivity per square meter were designated contaminated zones, while levels of 555,000 becquerels or more required forcible relocation. In Chiba and Saitama prefectures, the highest radiation levels were 0.2 to 0.5 microsievert per hour. In most other areas, the radiation levels were 0.1 microsievert or less.
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDlEOmcALwQ Professor Tatsuhiko Kodama is the head of the Radioisotope Center at the University of Tokyo. On July 27, he appeared as a witness to give testimony to the Committee on Welfare and Labor in Japan's Lower House in the Diet. (At the end, Prof. Kodama was able to elaborate only three of his "four requests" probably due to the time constraint.)
Weather, deteriorating reactors exacerbated disaster By HIROSHI ISHIZUKA Staff Writer of the vernacular Asahi Shimbun The education ministry measured the accumulated amount of radioactive cesium in areas within a 160-kilometer radius from the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant through the use of aircraft in late July. Details of the Atomic Energy Society of Japan panel's findings will be published on the society's website.
Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto has created a beautiful, undeniably scary time-lapse map of the 2053 nuclear explosions which have taken place between 1945 and 1998, beginning with the Manhattan Project's "Trinity" test near Los Alamos and concluding with Pakistan's nuclear tests in May of 1998. This leaves out North Korea's two alleged nuclear tests in this past decade (the legitimacy of both of which is not 100% clear). Each nation gets a blip and a flashing dot on the map whenever they detonate a nuclear weapon, with a running tally kept on the top and bottom bars of the screen. Hashimoto, who began the project in 2003, says that he created it with the goal of showing"the fear and folly of nuclear weapons." It starts really slow — if you want to see real action, skip ahead to 1962 or so — but the buildup becomes overwhelming. http://www.ctbto.org/specials/1945-1998-by-isao-hashimoto/
All that from a cookie?
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Just you and me and the tour boats… Photo courtesy of Judy Thai. Cookies
from China.
The post All that from a cookie? first appeared on Engrish.com.
Mix: The Best of Shibuya-kei, Volume One
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The time has been right for a new mix that showcases, celebrates, and
reintroduces the best tracks from Shibuya-kei’s peak years: dj david, mon
amour - “Th...
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