Radioactive Tritium Has Leaked from Three-Quarters of U.S. Commercial Nuclear Power Sites, Often Into Groundwater
June 21st, 2011Via: AP:
Radioactive tritium has leaked from three-quarters of U.S. commercial nuclear power sites, often into groundwater from corroded, buried piping, an Associated Press investigation shows.
The number and severity of the leaks has been escalating, even as federal regulators extend the licenses of more and more reactors across the nation.
Tritium, which is a radioactive form of hydrogen, has leaked from at least 48 of 65 sites, according to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission records reviewed as part of the AP’s yearlong examination of safety issues at aging nuclear power plants. Leaks from at least 37 of those facilities contained concentrations exceeding the federal drinking water standard — sometimes at hundreds of times the limit.
While most leaks have been found within plant boundaries, some have migrated offsite. But none is known to have reached public water supplies.
At three sites — two in Illinois and one in Minnesota — leaks have contaminated drinking wells of nearby homes, the records show, but not at levels violating the drinking water standard. At a fourth site, in New Jersey, tritium has leaked into an aquifer and a discharge canal feeding picturesque Barnegat Bay off the Atlantic Ocean.
Previously, the AP reported that regulators and industry have weakened safety standards for decades to keep the nation’s commercial nuclear reactors operating within the rules. While NRC officials and plant operators argue that safety margins can be eased without peril, critics say these accommodations are inching the reactors closer to an accident.
N.C. Man Allegedly Robs Bank of $1 to Get Health Care in Jail
June 21st, 2011Via: ABC News:
A 59-year-old man has been jailed in Gastonia, N.C., on charges of larceny after allegedly robbing an RBC Bank for $1 so he could get health care in prison. Richard James Verone handed a female teller a note demanding the money and claiming that he had a gun, according to the police report.
He then sat down and waited for police to arrive. “… I say, ‘I’ll be sitting right over here, on the chair, waiting for the police,'” Verone told reporters, recalling the June 9 robbery in an interview from Gaston County Jail.
And wait for the police, he did.
“He’s sitting on the sofa as you walk in the front door,” the bank teller said in a 911 call.
Police arrested Verone where he sat. He was unarmed.
Verone said he asked for $1 to show that his motives were medical, not monetary, according to news reports. With a growth in his chest, two ruptured disks and no job, Verone hoped a three-year stint in prison would afford him the health care he needed.
China Projecting Holographic Images of City Skylines, Mountains, Trees [???]
June 21st, 2011Uh…
Via: ITN:
Spectacular images of mountains, buildings and trees have appeared in a mirage in China.
Millions of Bored Users Quit Facebook [???]
June 21st, 2011Quantcast and Alexa both show Facebook as the #2 destination on the Internet in the U.S., behind Google, so…
Via: CNN:
There’s no denying the cultural impact of Facebook. It has united almost 700 million people, including most of you reading this, becoming the greatest social introduction platform the world has ever seen.
But there are also some recent signs of “Facebook fatigue.” There is only so much you can do to socialize online, especially after you’ve exhausted your friend list. Some people also complain they’re spending so much time on Facebook that they’re short-changing the rest of their lives.
Evidence suggests a small but increasing number of users — at least in North America, where Facebook use is especially saturated — may be shunning the site. The site lost more than 7 million active users in the United States and Canada last month, according to data from the blog Inside Facebook, although Facebook disputes those figures.
Others are consciously reducing the time they spend on the site.
“I figured out that I wouldn’t look back as an old man and wish I had spent more time on Facebook,” says David Cole, an IT manager from Boston. Cole said he believes the popular social-networking site is a useful tool, but not a replacement for what he calls “realbook” experiences.
Spying Devices Found on Thousands of Hong Kong Cars
June 20th, 2011Via: Discovery News:
Note to drivers and passengers travelling through Hong Kong: Mum’s the word.
Chinese authorities have allegedly been spying on Hong King motorists after a device installed on throusands of vehicles was discovered to contain hardware suitable for eavesdropping.
According to a report in Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily, recording devices were installed as “inspection and quarantine cards” in 2007. The devices — about the size of a Blackberry and taped to vehicles’ front windows — were installed free of charge by the Shenzhen Inspection and Quarantine Bureau to streamline inspection status checks at border crossings.
…
Dawei told Apple Daily that much cheaper chips could be used to check inspection status for simple border crossings, “but this device uses chips commonly found in Bluetooth and voice recording devices, designed for receiving voice transmission.”
Liming says the listening range is extensive.
“The signal receiving range is up to 20km, which means if the device installer wants to, they can listen even when the vehicles are in Hong Kong.”
Research Credit: Neo
Supreme Court: Individuals May Challenge Federal Law for Violating States’ Rights
June 20th, 2011Hmm. I didn’t think that such an apparently desirable decision would come about this late in the game. Am I missing something? This seems too good to be true.
Via: Jurist:
The US Supreme Court Thursday ruled in Bond v. United States that a private individual can challenge whether a federal criminal law passed to implement an international treaty is valid under the Tenth Amendment.
…Bond has standing to challenge whether the federal law interferes with the powers left only to the states. The court said:
to argue that the National Government has interfered with state sovereignty in violation of the Tenth Amendment is to assert the legal rights and interests of States and States alone. That, however, is not so. … Bond seeks to vindicate her own constitutional interests. The individual, in a proper case, can assert injury from governmental action taken in excess of the authority that federalism defines. Her rights in this regard do not belong to a State.
…
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg concurred, joined by Stephen Breyer, arguing that Bond had standing because “Bond, like any other defendant, has a personal right not to be convicted under a constitutionally invalid law.”
U.S. Treasury Exchange Stabilization Fund
June 20th, 2011There are more parts at the link. (I’m almost out of bandwidth for this billing cycle, so I only watched part one.)
It’s helpful to think of U.S. Treasury as Goldman Sachs.
Via: Market Skeptics:
Two Million Construction Jobs May be Lost for Good
June 20th, 2011Via: CBS:
Some Americans are giving up entirely on the idea of owning a house – choosing instead a condo or renting an apartment.
In southern California, CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reports more of those homes are being built now – but they don’t create as many construction jobs as single-family houses do.
Put on life support by the recession, housing construction in California is beginning to show a pulse. But the life blood is no longer single-family houses. There’s a new driving force: apartment and condo construction.
Hiding Surveillance and Killer Drones in Plain Sight
June 20th, 2011Via: New York Times:
Two miles from the cow pasture where the Wright Brothers learned to fly the first airplanes, military researchers are at work on another revolution in the air: shrinking unmanned drones, the kind that fire missiles into Pakistan and spy on insurgents in Afghanistan, to the size of insects and birds.
The base’s indoor flight lab is called the “microaviary,” and for good reason. The drones in development here are designed to replicate the flight mechanics of moths, hawks and other inhabitants of the natural world. “We’re looking at how you hide in plain sight,” said Greg Parker, an aerospace engineer, as he held up a prototype of a mechanical hawk that in the future might carry out espionage or kill.
Related: Festo’s Smart Bird
Man Mines Precious Metals and Gems on Midtown Manhattan Sidewalks
June 20th, 2011I happen to like stories about weird ways that people make it through this… reality.
Wow, I definitely wouldn’t have ever thought of this. He probably should have told people he lost his contact lenses or something.
Via: New York Post:
There’s gold in them thar sidewalk cracks!
A Queens man has discovered enough hidden treasure — bits of diamonds, rubies, platinum and gold — on the gritty sidewalks of Midtown’s Diamond District to make a living.
“The streets of 47th Street are literally paved with gold,” a giddy Raffi Stepanian, 43, of Whitestone told The Post last week when a reporter discovered him on all fours — armed with tweezers and a butter knife — digging through cracks in the sidewalk in a driving rainstorm.
