Tokyo Soil Samples Would Be Considered Radioactive Waste In U.S.

March 29th, 2012

Via: Fairewinds Energy Education:

Tokyo Soil Samples Would Be Considered Nuclear Waste In The US from Fairewinds Energy Education on Vimeo.

While traveling in Japan several weeks ago, Fairewinds’ Arnie Gundersen took soil samples in Tokyo public parks, playgrounds, and rooftop gardens. All the samples would be considered nuclear waste if found here in the US. This level of contamination is currently being discovered throughout Japan. At the US NRC Regulatory Information Conference in Washington, DC March 13 to March 15, the NRC’s Chairman, Dr. Gregory Jaczko emphasized his concern that the NRC and the nuclear industry presently do not consider the costs of mass evacuations and radioactive contamination in their cost benefit analysis used to license nuclear power plants. Furthermore, Fairewinds believes that evacuation costs near a US nuclear plant could easily exceed one trillion dollars and contaminated land would be uninhabitable for generations.


FBI Memo: Agents Can ‘Bend or Suspend the Law’

March 29th, 2012

Via: Wired:

The FBI once taught its agents that they can “bend or suspend the law” as they wiretap suspects. But the bureau says it didn’t really mean it, and has now removed the document from its counterterrorism training curriculum, calling it an “imprecise” instruction. Which is a good thing, national security attorneys say, because the FBI’s contention that it can twist the law in pursuit of suspected terrorists is just wrong.

“Dismissing this statement as ‘imprecise’ is a rather unsatisfying response given the very precise lines Congress and the courts have repeatedly drawn between what is and is not permissible, even in counterterrorism cases, over the past decade,” Steve Vladeck, a national-security law professor at American University, says. “It might technically be true that the FBI has certain authorities when conducting counterterrorism investigations that the Constitution otherwise forbids, but that’s good only so far as it goes.”

The reference to law-bending was noted in a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller from Sen. Richard Durbin that Danger Room obtained. When Danger Room asked for the original document, the FBI initially declined. On Wednesday, a Bureau spokesperson relented, but refused to say who prepared the document; how long it was in circulation; and how many FBI agents, analysts and officials received its instruction.

The undated piece of instructional material (.pdf) notes that “under certain circumstances, the FBI has the ability to bend or suspend the law to impinge on the freedom of others.” Those circumstances include “the ability to gather information on individuals which would normally be protected under the U.S. Constitution through the use of FISA [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act], Title 3 monitoring [general law enforcement surveillance], NSL [National Security Letter] reports, etc.”


Britain: Army on Standby for Fuel Truckers Strike

March 29th, 2012

Via: Reuters:

The British government laid plans on Tuesday to cope with possible fuel shortages if a strike by tanker drivers goes ahead, lining up the army to help and warning businesses and the public to make preparations.

Truckers voted on Monday to take strike action that union officials said could deplete petrol stocks within two days, against a backdrop of tough austerity measures to tackle a record peacetime public budget gap.

Hauliers and farmers protesting high fuel taxes brought much of the country to a standstill in 2000 when they blockaded oil refineries and petrol distribution centres.

Anxious to avoid a repeat that could hit an ailing economy and would embarrass the country in the run-up to July’s Olympic Games, the government is drafting contingency plans to deploy the army on Britain’s streets for the first time in almost a decade.

Ministers are considering asking businesses to lend them tankers to be driven by soldiers, who would need eight days’ training to be ready, as well as getting more drivers.


Class Action Lawsuit Challenges NYPD Patrols of Private Apartment Buildings

March 29th, 2012

Via: New York Civil Liberties Union:

The NYPD’s enforcement of Operation Clean Halls, a part of the Department’s stop-and-frisk program that allows police officers to patrol thousands of private apartment buildings across New York City, violates the rights of residents of those buildings and their guests – largely black and Latino New Yorkers – according to a federal class-action lawsuit filed today by the New York Civil Liberties Union, LatinoJustice PRLDEF and The Bronx Defenders.

“Operation Clean Halls has placed hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, mostly black and Latino, under siege in their own homes,” NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said. “For residents of Clean Halls buildings, taking the garbage out or checking the mail can result in being thrown against the wall and humiliated by police. Untold numbers of people have been wrongly arrested for trespassing because they had the audacity to leave their apartments without IDs or visit friends and family who live in Clean Halls buildings. This aggressive assault on people’s constitutional rights must be stopped.”


3D Bio-Printer

March 29th, 2012

7 News Reposted on YouTube:

Via: Invetech:

“Imagine being able to print human tissues on demand.”

This was the inspiration for start-up company Organovo as they set out to build the world’s first production 3D bio-printer.

For decades the goal of tissue engineers has been to advance beyond simple two-dimensional cell cultures to creating three-dimensional organs.

Organovo had a vision to produce a 3D bioprinter that would make this dream a reality, providing surgeons with tissue on demand and helping solve the global shortage of human organs.

Invetech partnered with Organovo to help them transform their core science into a reliable and commercially viable instrument. Within nine months this partnership had solved engineering challenges that had confounded the biomedical industry for decades to design, develop, manufacture and ship the world’s first commercial 3D bioprinter.

The printer includes two robotically controlled precision print heads: one for placing human cells, the other for placing a hydrogel, scaffold, or support matrix. One of the most complex challenges in the development of the bio-printer was to perfect a means to consistently position the cell dispensing capillary tip attached to the print head within microns. Invetech developed a computer-controlled, laser-based calibration system to achieve the required repeatability.

While the science and engineering is incredibly complex, the intuitive user interface makes operating the printer extremely simple: the operator literally draws the organ to be built on the computer screen.

The initial focus of the bioprinter is on producing simple tissues, like blood vessels and nerve conduit, but potentially any tissue or organ can be built.

More: Organovo


The Rise of the Machines, as Told by Workplace Safety Signs

March 29th, 2012

Via: io9:

Come the robot uprising, one of the first orders of business on the insurgents’ agenda will be to breathe life into the world’s most dangerous pre-existing mechanical equipment.

Fortunately for those who like to plan ahead, the vast majority of today’s hazardous machines feature warning labels that clearly illustrate all the ways that they can maim, burn, and dismember all humans.

Featured below is a small sampling from an incredibly amusing set of mechanical warning labels, collected by the folks at NOTCOT during this year’s WESTEC manufacturing convention in Los Angeles.

Gallery: NOTCOT


Monsanto Wants to Brainwash Your Children with ‘Biotechnology Basics Activity Book’

March 29th, 2012

Reason to homeschool #217-B.

Via: Natural News:

In response to mounting public backlash from the older generation, the biotechnology industry has launched a new propaganda campaign aimed at convincing children that genetically-modified (GM) crops are not only safe, but also an improvement over natural agriculture. Monsanto, Dow, Bayer, and five other major biotechnology companies and associations have collectively released the Biotechnology Basics Activity Book, a colorful guide designed to reeducate children into the false dogma of biotechnology.

Related: Has Modern Science Become Dysfunctional?


American Society for Microbiology: ‘Has Modern Science Become Dysfunctional?’

March 29th, 2012

Well, well, well. I guess the American Society for Microbiology has joined the ranks of the lunatic fringe.

If I had written this, Skepdick Corp-A-Ment Grant Swindling Sci-Cult members would be jamming my inbox with nonsense.

Via: American Society for Microbiology:

The recent explosion in the number of retractions in scientific journals is just the tip of the iceberg and a symptom of a greater dysfunction that has been evolving the world of biomedical research say the editors-in-chief of two prominent journals in a presentation before a committee of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) today.

“Incentives have evolved over the decades to encourage some behaviors that are detrimental to good science,” says Ferric Fang, editor-in-chief of the journal Infection and Immunity, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), who is speaking today at the meeting of the Committee of Science, Technology, and Law of the NAS along with Arturo Casadevall, editor-in-chief of mBio®, the ASM’s online, open-access journal.

In the past decade the number of retraction notices for scientific journals has increased more than 10-fold while the number of journals articles published has only increased by 44%. While retractions still represent a very small percentage of the total, the increase is still disturbing because it undermines society’s confidence in scientific results and on public policy decisions that are based on those results, says Casadevall. Some of the retractions are due to simple error but many are a result of misconduct including falsification of data and plagiarism.

More concerning, say the editors, is that this trend may be a symptom of a growing dysfunction in the biomedical sciences, one that needs to be addressed soon. At the heart of the problem is an economic incentive system fueling a hypercompetitive environment that is fostering poor scientific practices, including frank misconduct.


Open Thread: JetBlue Incident

March 29th, 2012

I know a couple of pilots and, initially, this didn’t surprise me too much. If I was making bum change to sit in an aluminum death capsule all day and/or night, while having to be away from my family most of the time, I might lose my shit too.

But…

This gets more interesting with each passing hour, as more information trickles out.

Post anomalous information / “coincidences” in the comments below.

Is there more to this than meets the eye?

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Many pilots read Cryptogon. If you people have any insights on this, let us know.

Via: CBS News:

Federal prosecutors late Wednesday filed charges against the JetBlue pilot who had an apparent psychiatric episode, yelling about a bomb, telling passengers to pray, and banging on the cockpit door on a flight bound for Las Vegas a day earlier.

Clayton Frederick Osbon, 49, is charged in U.S. district court with interfering with inflight crew members, the same charge sometimes levied against unruly passengers or those who refuse to turn off electronics or comply with other instructions.

Osbon “moved through the aircraft and was disruptive and had to be subdued and forcibly restrained from re-entering the cockpit,” the criminal complaint states.

Osbon told his co-pilot that “things don’t matter” shortly after JetBlue Flight 191 from New York departed Tuesday, according to an affidavit. Court documents say Osbon told the plane’s first officer that “we’re not going to Vegas” and began what he described as a sermon.

“The (first officer) became really worried when Osbon said `we need to take a leap of faith,”‘ according to the sworn affidavit given by an FBI agent. “Osbon started trying to correlate completely unrelated numbers like different radio frequencies, and he talked about sins in Las Vegas.”

Passengers wrestled Osbon to the ground after he left the cockpit and later sprinted down the cabin yelling and urging everyone to pray. The plane made an emergency landing in Amarillo, Texas. No one on board was seriously hurt.

Mark Sellouk, one of the passengers on that flight, was interviewed by CBS News correspondent Lee Cowan about that moment up in the air.

“I’m looking at this happening,” he said, “and [Osbon’s] getting more and more violent, and now he’s starting to say, ‘Pray to Jesus,” and he started yelling inside to the flight deck, ‘Throttle to idle, throttle to idle! Bring this plain down! Al Qaeda is here!'”

Cowan asked Sellouk what was going through his mind. “I’m thinking of my family, my kids and my wife, and I’m looking at this guy,” Sellouk said. “I’m thinking, ‘This is how it’s going to end.”

Under federal law, a conviction for interference with a flight crew or attendants can bring up to 20 years in prison. The offense is defined as assaulting or intimidating the crew, interfering with its duties or diminishes its ability to do operate the plane.

The charges came as new details emerged Wednesday about the bizarre behavior Osbon exhibited during the flight, including unnecessarily fiddling with the plane’s controls and complaining of “too much noise” into the radio monitored by air traffic controllers and other pilots, CBS News investigative producer Pat Milton reports.

A source who spoke on condition of anonymity revealed new details to Milton of what happened in the cockpit before Osbon behaved erratically and was subdued in the cabin by passengers of Flight 191 between New York and Las Vegas. Osbon was taken into FBI custody in Amarillo, Texas, after the plane made an emergency landing there.

In addition to complaining about the noise into the radio, Osbon also said to “keep the chatter down.” CBS News’ Carter Yang reports that Osbon was improperly pressing buttons on the flight panel and “speaking incoherently” in the cockpit, according to a source.

JetBlue said Wednesday that Osbon “has been removed from active duty” pending an investigation involving multiple federal and local agencies, Yang reports.

Osbon has been a pilot for JetBlue since 2000. The company’s CEO and president Dave Barger told NBC’s “Today” show that Osbon is a “consummate professional” whom he has “personally known” for years.


Homework Is Useless for Children

March 28th, 2012

We’re going to take Owen on his first outing with other local homeschooling families to visit a geothermal power plant. It would be an understatement to say that he is going to enjoy this very much.

Via: The Daily Telegraph:

CHILDREN are being lumbered with hours of homework every week – but the extra slog doesn’t do them any good.

Research reveals primary school homework offers no real benefit – and only limited results in junior high school.

Only senior students in Years 11 and 12 benefit from after-school work, associate professor Richard Walker said.

“What the research shows is that, in countries where they spend more time on homework, the achievement results are lower,” Dr Walker, from Sydney University’s Education Faculty, said.

“The amount of homework is a really critical issue for kids. If they are overloaded they are not going to be happy and not going to enjoy it. There are other things kids want to do that are very valuable things for them to be doing.

“I don’t think anyone except senior high school students should be doing a couple of hours of homework.

Related: The Underground History of American Education: A School Teacher’s Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling by John Taylor Gatto


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