dharma power

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…

Marshall Islanders and Islands, R.I.P.

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 near is here?

How Tohoku, Kanto, Hokkaido, TEPCO, Kansai, Okinawa, other countries, and politicians see the spread of contamination. This is very accurate. Origin unknown.

Here on GOP's Isle (a.k.a. Gullibles Island)

Mitt Romney reminds me of someone. I finally figured out he's trying to do Thurston Howell III.

But that doesn't seem to be the end of it. If you think about it, Rick Perry has been trying out for the part of Gilligan. He's very good at it.

That means the Skipper has to be Newt Gingrich. At least his personal relationships are known to be sailor-like. As the majority leader of the House of Reprehensibles, he was third in line to the presidency. He also skippered that deliberative body into weather that started getting rough, and his tiny ship was tossed.

Sarah Palin is obviously Ginger. MaryAnne, with her homespun midwestern values, could have aged badly and morphed into Michelle Bachman if the series had gone on a few more decades.

Ron Paul is The Professor. When he isn't trying to abolish the fed he's making a radio out of a coconut or something. He is a doctor, after all.

"And the rest" has to cover Herman Cain here. He could be a one-episode character who washed up on the island, gains popularity when he promises to build a pizza restaurant, takes their money with some 9-9-9 scheme, and then leaves, taking their best hopes to be rescued with him. Perhaps an episode featured a campaign to elect the island's leader.

The question is: How could we be living in a Gilligan's Island script gone haywire? What I hypothesize is that a nuclear bomb test in the Pacific coincided with a popular broadcast of Gilligan's Island, somehow amplifying the existing television signal and embedding the plot in the subconscious minds of young impressionable children at the time. These children grew up with a Manchurian candidate syndrome, subconsciously seeking to replicate the plot of the fateful episode.

Alternate explanation: scriptwriter or casting director for Gilligan's Island was plagued by horrific premonitions of the 2011-2012 Republican Presidential candidate nominating process. This was probably caused by the Higgs Boson generated in our time-frame tunneling back through a wormhole into the 1960s.

This is so obvious, excuse me if other people have already noticed and done a skit of the concept on tv. Obviously i haven't watched much tv since the 1960s.

President 1962

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AesVsRvOEo
1962.
JFK: Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

Clown Car Update

Accidentally caught the Reptilian party "cnn tea party" "debate". There were 8 cards on the table. All appear challenged and slow. They represent the people who are a few decades behind the rest of the country, primarily the elderly. It seems that Republican candid-8 attending the debates should have the same right (or obligation?) to carry a concealed firearm that they enjoy when they go out for a drink. Let the sniping begin-- or continue. You have to fight for your right to "party". Didn't the Gipper say that?

Sandbox ban, go.jp document hunt, & To-Dai Prof Tatsuhiko KODAMA

Schools in Tokyo ban use of playground sandboxes over radiation fears - The Mainichi Daily News
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/news/20110830p2a00m0na015000c.html
When sandboxes are banned, only criminals will play in sandboxes.

http://www.s.affrc.go.jp/docs/press/pdf/110830-06.pdf
=Aug30 radiation map from MAFF.

http://radioactivity.mext.go.jp/ja/distribution_map_around_FukushimaNPP/0002/11555_0830.pdf
one from MEXT -- see pp 10, 11, 14, 15

http://www.s.affrc.go.jp/docs/press/pdf/110830-06.pdf



Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dlf4gOvzxYc
Click on "cc" button to show English subtitles.


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.)

Down the Banksters

Is there any way to get back to common sense and get rid of these two wallstreet parties' duo-cracy?
http://www.yesmagazine.org/pdf/liberateamericadownload.pdf
How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/19-8
The dominant story of the current political debate is that the government is broke. We can’t afford to pay for public services, put people to work, or service the public debt. Yet as a nation, we are awash in money. A defective system of money, banking, and finance just puts it in the wrong places.

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/newsgraphics/2011/0119-budget/
Obama’s 2012 Budget Proposal: How $3.7 Trillion is Spent

How are the grapes now?
BBC News - In Steinbeck's footsteps: America's struggles in 2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14296682
The BBC's Paul Mason retraces the harrowing journey taken by migrant workers the Joad family which John Steinbeck described in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath, set during the Great Depression, to find out how it reflects the realities of America's current economic crisis.

Thank you, America.

Declassified papers show U.S. promoted atomic power in Japan | The Japan Times Online
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110725a4.html
The United States used atomic power cooperation with Japan in the 1950s to ease the Japanese public's aversion to nuclear weapons and remedy their "ignorance" about such energy, declassified U.S. papers showed Saturday.

the reaming » "It is important to our relations with Japan that we seek to remove the strong Japanese notion that atomic and nuclear energy is primarily destructive. We should accordingly attempt at an early point to include Japan in bilateral and multilateral actions intended to develop peaceful uses of atomic energy." That November, Japan got reams of atomic energy documents.

SPEEDI, Exelon, Japan's energy

Over four months too late:
http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/earthquake/speedi/230724/230724.html
原子力安全・保安院 > 東日本大震災の影響について > 緊急時迅速放射能影響予測ネットワークシステム（ＳＰＥＥＤＩ）の計算結果について
www.nisa.meti.go.jp

» Nuclear operator Exelon Corporation has been among Barack Obama's biggest campaign donors, and is one of the largest employers in Illinois where Obama was senator. Exelon has donated more than $269,000 to his political campaigns, thus far. Obama also appointed Exelon CEO John Rowe to his Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future.
Fukushima: It's much worse than you think
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/06/201161664828302638.html
Scientific experts believe Japan's nuclear disaster to be far worse than governments are revealing to the public.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20110724x1.html
Powering Japan's future | The Japan Times Online
Last year, Japan produced close to one quadrillion watt-hours of electricity — that's 1 followed by 15 zeros. The vast majority of that — which translates into one billion megawatt hours (MWh) — came from coal, natural gas and nuclear power plants operated by 10 utilities...

The Emperor's Speech

http://www.japanfocus.org/-Gavan-McCormack/3517
The Akihito address used form and content that subconsciously linked the two occasions in listeners’ minds. Through it, the Japanese state implicitly called on the people to appreciate that, beyond the disaster unfolding in northeastern Japan the country itself faces a shift in direction comparable to that of 1945.

Summary of NISHIO Masamichi: The Problem of Radiation Exposure Countermeasures for the Fukushima Nuclear Accident: Concerns for the Present Situation

Nuclear Workers and Fukushima Residents at Risk: Cancer Expert on the Fukushima Situation　　
原発作業員と福島住民のさらされる危険−−ガン専門家の福島観
http://japanfocus.org/events/view/100
or
here (google translate).

This Could Also Explain How Your Blogger CAPTCHA Gets Solved: Chinese prisoners sold to spammers

Chinese Prisoners Allegedly Forced to Play 'World of Warcraft'
www.pcworld.com
One former prisoner says he had to farm virtual gold that the prison guards then sold in the real world for cash.
http://soc.li/KLDAhnh
Prison guards were reportedly able to sell the virtual currency for up to 6,000 yuan a day, which is about $930 -- not a bad sum. The prisoners, who naturally never saw any of the money, also had quotas to meet. According to Dali, "If I couldn't complete my work quota, they would punish me physically. They would make me stand with my hands raised in the air and after I returned to my dormitory they would beat me."

Rolling Stone on America's Nuke Industry, Safety, and the revolving door of the toothless NRC

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/america-s-nuclear-nightmare-20110427

Some choice excerpts:

NRC has long served as little more than a lap dog to the nuclear industry, unwilling to crack down on unsafe reactors. "The agency is a wholly owned subsidiary of the nuclear power industry," says Victor Gilinsky, who served on the commission during the Three Mile Island meltdown in 1979.

Even President Obama denounced the NRC during the 2008 campaign, calling it a "moribund agency that needs to be revamped and has become captive of the industries that it regulates."
...
In the years ahead, nuclear experts warn, the consequences of the agency's inaction could be dire. "The NRC has consistently put industry profits above public safety," says Arnie Gundersen, a former nuclear executive turned whistle-blower. "Consequently, we have a dozen Fukushimas waiting to happen in America."
...
In his 2012 budget, President Obama included $54 billion in federal loan guarantees for new reactors — far more than the $18 billion available for renewable energy.

Without such taxpayer support, no new reactors would ever be built. Since the Manhattan Project was created to develop the atomic bomb back in the 1940s, the dream of a nuclear future has been fueled almost entirely by Big Government. America's current fleet of reactors exists only because Congress passed the Price-Anderson Act in 1957, limiting the liability of nuclear plant operators in case of disaster. And even with taxpayers assuming most of the risk, Wall Street still won't finance nuclear reactors without direct federal assistance, in part because construction costs are so high (up to $20 billion per plant) and in part because nukes are the only energy investment that can be rendered worthless in a matter of hours. "In a free market, where real risks and costs are accounted for, nuclear power doesn't exist," says Amory Lovins, a leading energy expert at the Rocky Mountain Institute. Nuclear plants "are a creation of government policy and intervention."

They are also a creation of lobbying and campaign contributions. Over the past decade, the nuclear industry has contributed more than $4.6 million to members of Congress — and last year alone, it spent $1.7 million on federal lobbying. Given the generous flow of nuclear money, the NRC is essentially rigged to operate in the industry's favor. The agency has plenty of skilled engineers and scientists at the staff level, but the five commissioners who oversee it often have close ties to the industry they are supposed to regulate. "They are vetted by the industry," says Robert Alvarez, a former senior policy adviser at the Energy Department. "It's the typical revolving-door story — many are coming in or out of jobs with the nuclear power industry. You don't get a lot of skeptics appointed to this job."
...
Jeffrey Merrifield, a former NRC commissioner who left the agency in 2007, is a case in point. When Merrifield was ready to exit public service, he simply called up the CEO of Exelon, the country's largest nuclear operator, and asked him for a job recommendation. Given his friends in high places, he wound up taking a top job at the Shaw Group, a construction firm that builds nuclear reactors — and he's done his best to return the favor. During the Fukushima disaster, Merrifield appeared on Fox News, as well as in videos for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's lobbying group. In one video — titled "Former NRC Commissioner Confident That Building of New U.S. Nuclear Plants Should Continue" — Merrifield reassures viewers that the meltdown in Japan is no big deal. "We should continue to move forward with building those new plants," he says, "because it's the right thing for our nation and it's the right thing for our future."
...
America has 31 aging reactors just like Fukushima, and it wouldn't take an earthquake or tsunami to push many of them to the brink of meltdown. A natural disaster may have triggered the crisis in Japan, but the real problem was that the plant lost power and was unable to keep its cooling systems running — a condition known as "station blackout." At U.S. reactors, power failures have been caused by culprits as mundane as squirrels playing on power lines. In the event of a blackout, operators have only a few hours to restore power before a meltdown begins. All nukes are equipped with backup diesel generators, as well as batteries. But at Fukushima, the diesel generators were swamped by floodwaters, and the batteries lasted a mere eight hours — not nearly long enough to get power restored and avert catastrophe. NRC standards do virtually nothing to prevent such a crisis here at home. Only 11 of America's nuclear reactors have batteries designed to supply power for up to eight hours, while the other 93 have batteries that last half that long.
...
Indeed, the NRC's "safety-last" attitude recalls the industry-friendly approach to regulation that resulted in the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico last year. Nuclear reactors were built to last only 40 years, but the NRC has repeatedly greenlighted industry requests to keep the aging nukes running for another two decades: Of the 63 applications the NRC has received for license extensions, it has approved all 63.
...
According to a 2003 study, it would cost as much as $7 billion to move the spent fuel out of the pools and into more secure containers known as dry-cask storage. So why hasn't the NRC required such a precaution? "Power companies don't want to pay for it," says Alvarez. "They would rather let the public take the risk." Gilinsky offers another explanation. "After insisting for years that spent fuel pools were not a problem," he says, "the NRC doesn't want to admit what everyone knows after Fukushima: They were wrong."
...
Some critics argue that it's time for an outside agency, such as the National Academy of Sciences, to take an independent look at the safety and security of America's aging nukes. A better idea might be to simply repeal the Price-Anderson Act and force the nuclear industry to take responsibility for the risks of running these old plants, rather than laying it all off on taxpayers. The meltdown in Japan could cost Tokyo Electric some $130 billion — roughly three times what the Deepwater Horizon spill cost BP. If nuke owners had to put their own money where their atoms are, the crumbling old reactors would get cleaned up or shut down in a heartbeat.
...
Instead, by allowing the industry to cut safety margins in exchange for profits, the NRC is actually putting the "nuclear renaissance" itself at risk. "It has not been protesters who have brought down the nuclear industry," said Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts. "It has been Wall Street." Wind and natural gas are already cheaper than nukes, and the price of solar is falling fast. And with each new Fukushima, the cost of nukes — as well as the risks — will continue to rise.

Read the article!

TEPCO-METI-NISA Amakudari

Amakudari, Japan's "Descent from Heaven" is like a combination of the "revolving door" of government and industry in the USA, and a "Golden Parachute" in the lucrative private jobs available after government service. Americans are less concerned with appearances and can come directly FROM industry into government posts pretending to regulate those industries.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110504a1.html

At present, 13 retired career-track METI bureaucrats hold senior positions at electric power companies under the practice of "amakudari" (descent from heaven).

METI, which oversees 10 electric utilities and two electricity wholesalers, investigated the matter after the crisis at Tepco's Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant fueled criticism of the practice.

The fact that former elite bureaucrats land key positions at private-sector companies in industries they previously oversaw has been widely criticized for creating cozy, corrupt relations, as well as allegations that this has led to slack s...upervision of the nuclear power industry.

METI minister Banri Kaieda recently urged his bureaucrats not to accept jobs offered by government-affiliated organizations or companies the ministry oversees, but he has no authority to force retired officials to leave their current jobs.

Five former ministry officials have assumed postretirement positions at Tepco over the past 50 years, including as advisers and board members. The utility is struggling to end the nuclear crisis at its Fukushima plant that was triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

The crisis has also cast a spotlight on the relationship between METI and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, which plays the role of nuclear watchdog but is under the ministry's wings.

The agency, established as a special entity of the METI-affiliated Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, is responsible for ensuring the safety of nuclear plants. The Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan, institutionalized under the Cabinet Office, is supposed to double-check the agency's steps.

Calls are mounting for NISA to be organizationally separated from the ministry, which has long actively promoted nuclear power. Last month, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said he will look into the feasibility of NISA's separation from METI.

Dishing the dirt

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/02/parents-revolt-radiation-levels

The new standard of 20 millisieverts a year – equivalent to the annual maximum dose for German nuclear workers – will mean those schools remain open, but parents and nuclear opponents are angry that safety concerns are being ignored.
...
"I think 20 millisieverts is safe but I don't think it's good," said Itaru Watanabe of the education ministry, drawing howls of derision from the audience of participants.
...
"How dare they tell us it is safe for our children," said Sachiko Satou of the Protect Fukushima Children from Radiation Association. "This is disgusting. They can't play outside with such risks. If the government won't remove the radioactive dirt then we'll do it ourselves and dump it outside the headquarters of Tokyo Electric."

This is your kid on radiation.

U.S. doctors hit Tokyo radiation limit for kids
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110502x1.html

Physicians for Social Responsibility, a U.S. nonprofit organization of medical experts, has condemned as "unconscionable" the Japanese government's safety standards on radiation levels at elementary and junior high schools in nuclear disaster-stricken Fukushima Prefecture.

"(Twenty millisieverts) for children exposes them to a 1 in 200 risk of getting cancer. And if they are exposed to this dose for two years, the risk is 1 in 100. There is no way that this level of exposure can be considered 'safe' for children," the statement said.

The pressure rises. If they can't attend school there, they can't really live there. If the kids can't live there, the parents (or in Japan, at least the mothers) need to leave, too. Once the children and women leave, the towns basically die. It's better (imo) to force evacuation of the contaminated ag areas anyway to keep toxic food out of the supply chain.

A Look Back, ...sideways, and forward

http://villageofjoy.com/chernobyl-today-a-creepy-story-told-in-pictures/
Its population had been around 50,000 prior to the accident. Today, the only residents are deer and wolves along with a solitary guard. It took three days before all permanent residents of Chernobyl were evacuated. Let the story be told by these magical pictures taken ~20 years later...

JapanFocus

JapanFocus
http://japanfocus.org/-Makiko-Segawa/3516

Mistrust of the media has surged among the people of Fukushima Prefecture. In part this is due to reports filed by mainstream journalists who are unwilling to visit the area near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. But above all it is the result of contradictory reports...

...at TEPCO press conferences, which are now being held at company headquarters, foreign correspondents and Japanese freelancers regularly ask probing questions while mainstream journalists simply record and report compa...ny statements reiterating that the situation is basically under control and there is nothing to worry about. One reason for this, Uesugi suggests, is that TEPCO, a giant media sponsor, has an annual 20 billion yen advertising budget. "The media keeps defending the information from TEPCO!”
...
There is one particularly telling example of the media shielding TEPCO by suppressing information. This concerns “plutonium”. According to Uesugi, after the reactor blew up on March 14, there was concern about the leakage of plutonium. Howe...ver, astonishingly, until two weeks later when Uesugi asked, not a single media representative had raised the question of plutonium at TEPCO's press conferences.
On March 26, in response to Uesugi’s query, TEPCO stated, “We do not measure the level of plutonium and do not even have a detector to scale it.” Ironically, the next day, Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano announced that “plutonium was detected”.
When TEPCO finally released data on radioactive plutonium on March 28, it stated that plutonium -238, -239, and -240 were found in the ground, but insisted that it posed no human risk. Since TEPCO provided no clarification of the meaning of the plutonium radiation findings, the mainstream press merely reported the presence of the radiation without assessment.

The comments and resignation of Toshiso Kosako from his radiation advisory post

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/04/government-adviser-quits-post-to.html

Government Adviser Quits Post to Protest Japan's Policy on Radiation Exposure for Fukushima Schools.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110430x2.html

TOKYO—A prominent Japanese radiation safety specialist has resigned his governmental advisory post in protest over what he calls "inexcusable" standards for school children in Fukushima Prefecture. The Yomiuri Online news web site reported in Japanese this evening that Toshiso Kosako
Prime Minister Naoto Kan defended his government's handling of the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 plant on Saturday, a day after one of his advisers on the emergency vowed to resign in protest at what he called the state's lax response.

Kan told the Lower House Budget Committee the departure of Toshiso Kosako, a professor on antiradiation safety measures at the University of Tokyo's graduate school who assumed the advisory post March 16, is extremely unfortunate.

"We are dealing with the crisis based on the advice that comes as a result of discussions by the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan. Our handling of the crisis has never been impromptu," Kan said.

Kosako told the government Friday he will resign as Kan's adviser.

"The government has belittled laws and taken measures only for the present moment, resulting in delays in bringing the situation under control," Kosako said.

It is extremely rare for an intellectual adviser appointed by the prime minister to resign in protest at measures the government has taken.

Kosako told reporters at the Diet on Friday it is problematic for the government to have delayed the release of forecasts on the spread of radiation from the Fukushima plant, done by the Nuclear Safety Technology Center's computer system, called the System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information (SPEEDI).

He also blasted the government for hiking the upper limit for emergency workers seeking to bring the crippled plant under control to 250 millisieverts from 100 millisieverts after the crisis broke out.

"The prime minister's office and administrative organizations have made impromptu policy decisions, like playing a whack-a-mole game, ignoring proper procedures," the radiation expert said.

He also urged the government to stiffen guidelines on upper limits on radiation levels the education ministry recently announced as allowable levels for elementary school grounds in Fukushima Prefecture, where the radiation-leaking plant is located.

The guidelines announced by the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry "are inconsistent with internationally commonsensical figures and they were determined by the administration to serve its interests," he said.

As the only country to experience an atomic bombing, Japan has long had a powerful antinuclear movement, and such protests have become louder.

Yoshiko Nakamura, 50, a part-time worker, was among 450 who gathered Saturday in Tokyo's Yoyogi Park. The demonstrators beat drums, shouted "No more nukes" and held banners that read "Electricity in Tokyo, sacrifice in Fukushima."

"We knew all along nuclear power was dangerous. I just didn't know how to express myself," said Nakamura, taking part in her second demonstration in two weeks. "This is a great opportunity to send a message and voice my fears."

Such demonstrations have become more frequent, including during the Golden Week holidays, which continue through the weekend and this week. "What I had feared might happen has become reality," said Kenji Kitamura, a 48-year-old office worker. "It is outrageous children are being exposed to such high levels of radiation."