Fukushima: Workers Suffer from Internal Radiation Exposure
May 23rd, 2011Via: Mainichi:
The government has discovered thousands of cases of workers at nuclear power plants outside Fukushima Prefecture suffering from internal exposure to radiation after they visited the prefecture, the head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said.
Most of the workers who had internal exposure to radiation visited Fukushima after the nuclear crisis broke out following the March 11 quake and tsunami, and apparently inhaled radioactive substances scattered by hydrogen explosions at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant.
The revelation has prompted local municipalities in Fukushima to consider checking residents’ internal exposure to radiation.
Nobuaki Terasaka, head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, told the House of Representatives Budget Committee on May 16 that there were a total of 4,956 cases of workers suffering from internal exposure to radiation at nuclear power plants in the country excluding the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, and 4,766 of them involved workers originally from Fukushima who had visited the prefecture after the nuclear crisis. Terasaka revealed the data in his response to a question from Mito Kakizawa, a lawmaker from Your Party.
Disney Ride Now Includes “Security Check Area, Similar to a TSA Checkpoint”
May 23rd, 2011Absolutely breathtaking.
Via: Mouse Planet:
The second room of the queue is now a security check area, similar to a TSA checkpoint. The two G-series droids are still there, G2-9T scanning luggage and G2-4T scanning passengers… While we won’t tell you why, you’ll enjoy paying a lot of attention to what the scans of the luggage show is inside. When it’s your turn to go through the passenger scan (a thermal body scan), you may be verbally accosted by a security droid.
The World’s Largest Man-Made Floating Object
May 23rd, 2011Via: Popular Science:
Shell is making good on its promise to build the largest object ever to float on water, announcing Friday it would build the Prelude FLNG Project to harvest offshore natural gas fields. The gargantuan ship will suck up the equivalent of 110,000 barrels of oil per day.
The floating liquified natural gas facility will dwarf the biggest warships, weighing in at 600,000 metric tons. By contrast, the U.S.’ next-generation Ford-class supercarrier will displace 101,000 metric tons of water. Shell says its ship will be able to withstand a category 5 typhoon.
Tornado Destroys Joplin, Missouri
May 23rd, 2011Via: Missourinet:
Emergency responders from throughout Missouri have descended on Joplin after a mile-wide tornado devastated the Southwest Missouri town. Twenty four are confirmed dead, dozens are still missing.
The Death of Catherine Hurd in Manhattan
May 23rd, 2011Via: Telegraph:
Lord Hurd’s daughter-in-law has been found dead after apparently committing suicide by jumping from the roof of her home in New York.
Catherine Hurd, a mother of five, fell the four storeys from the top of the rented townhouse in Manhattan where she lived with the former foreign secretary’s son Thomas, a British diplomat.
Mrs Hurd, 46, left no note but New York police are believed to be treating the case as a suicide. “All we can say is that no criminality is suspected,” a spokesman told The Daily Telegraph.
…
It is thought Mrs Hurd, who told neighbours she taught English at an international school, was due to return to London next week. Her husband is at the end of a stint working as a senior British official at the UN, where he is described as a “political counsellor”.
…
Mr Hurd is a former investment banker and was a contemporary of David Cameron’s at Eton and Oxford, where he was two years ahead of the Prime Minister.
He read Arabic and Modern Middle Eastern studies at Oxford between 1983 and 1987 and worked for Credit Suisse First Boston before joining the Foreign Office in 1992.
For the past few years he has been in New York, where he is listed as working for the British delegation on the UN security council, specialising in the middle east, G20 and Africa.
On his page on LinkedIn, a business networking site, he says he is “personally keen on studying the interaction between business and geopolitics”.
His father was one of the Conservative government’s most senior figures in the 1980s and 1990s. He served both Lady Thatcher and John Major as foreign secretary, after also serving as home secretary.
Research Credit: almaverdad2
Utah Embraces Gold and Silver as Currency
May 23rd, 2011The Utah Gold and Silver Depository is an interesting idea, but remember how fractional reserve banking got started in the first place? That’s right: Gold depositories started issuing paper promissory notes that people used instead of their actual gold. The depositories noticed that only a small number of notes were redeemed in the physical gold. It wasn’t long before loans were being issued that totaled many multiples of the value of the actual gold that was kept on hand (with disastrous results). This process has metastasized to the point where there’s now no gold, or anything else with intrinsic value, backing national currencies.
I’m not saying that something like the Utah Gold and Silver Depository is a bad idea, but people will need to make sure that it (and similar businesses) NEVER engage in any lending or credit related services. If they did, that would be a sure sign that the proprietors were engaging in the same old black magic swindle that has delivered us to the brink of oblivion.
Via: Houston Chronicle / AP:
Utah legislators want to see the dollar regain its former glory, back to the days when one could literally bank on it being “as good as gold.”
To make that point, they’ve turned it around, and made gold as good as cash. Utah became the first state in the country this month to legalize gold and silver coins as currency. The law also will exempt the sale of the coins from state capital gains taxes.
Craig Franco hopes to cash in on it with his Utah Gold and Silver Depository, and he thinks others will soon follow.
The idea is simple: Store your gold and silver coins in a vault, and Franco issues a debit-like card to make purchases backed by your holdings.
He plans to open for business June 1, likely the first of its kind in the country.
“Because we’re dealing with something so forward thinking, I expect a wait-and-see attitude,” Franco said. “Once the depository is executed and transactions can occur, then I think people will move into the marketplace.”
The idea was spawned by Republican state Rep. Brad Galvez, who sponsored the bill largely to serve as a protest against Federal Reserve monetary policy. Galvez says Americans are losing faith in the dollar. If you’re mad about government debt, ditch the cash. Spend your gold and silver, he says.
His idea isn’t to return to the gold standard, when the dollar was backed by gold instead of government goodwill. Instead, he just wanted to create options for consumers.
“We’re too far down the road to go back to the gold standard,” Galvez said. “This will move us toward an alternative currency.”
Pakistan Says China to Operate Key Port, Build Navy Base
May 23rd, 2011Via: Wall Street Journal:
Pakistan’s defense minister said China has agreed to take over operation of the strategically positioned but underused port of Gwadar, and that Islamabad would like the Chinese to build a base there for the Pakistani navy.
Ahmad Mukhtar gave no clear timetable on the possible change at Gwadar, on Pakistan’s western coast, which is currently managed by a Singaporean government company. But his statement Saturday is the latest illustration of how Pakistan is portraying China as a powerful alternative ally and aid source if the U.S. scales down military assistance for Islamabad in the aftermath of Osama bin Laden’s killing.
Mr. Mukhtar made the announcement after accompanying Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani on a visit to China last week. During that visit, Pakistani officials say, Beijing agreed to expedite delivery of a second batch of 50 jointly developed JF-17 fighter jets to Pakistan, possibly within six months.
Russia: Putin to Run for President Again
May 23rd, 2011Ah, yes, Democracy in action! *wink*
Will we get to see more absurd Putin propaganda? Missing from that gallery are some of my favorites: Vladimir Putin Helps to Tackle Russia’s Summer Wildfires, and:
Via: The Australian:
RUSSIAN Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has decided to run for the presidency next year, raising the possibility of a power struggle with his protege Dmitry Medvedev, the incumbent Kremlin leader, say highly placed sources.
The once-close relationship between Mr Putin, the tough-talking former KGB officer who has inspired a personality cult, and Mr Medvedev, a softly spoken Twitter enthusiast, has become increasingly fractious amid speculation in Moscow that the younger man wishes to stand again.
Insiders familiar with both leaders said Mr Putin, who served eight years as president before becoming Prime Minister three years ago, had begun to lose confidence in Mr Medvedev’s loyalty.
Under the constitution, Mr Putin’s move to reclaim the presidency could see him rule for two consecutive six-year terms until 2024, when he will be 72. If so, he would have served as prime minister or president for 24 years in all.
Related: List of Journalists Killed in Russia
Texas: Alpha Radiation in Harris County Drinking Water
May 22nd, 2011Via: KHOU:
Newly-released e-mails from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality show the agency’s top commissioners directed staff to continue lowering radiation test results, in defiance of federal EPA rules.
The e-mails and documents, released under order from the Texas Attorney General to KHOU-TV, also show the agency was attempting to help water systems get out of formally violating federal limits for radiation in drinking water. Without a formal violation, the water systems did not have to inform their residents of the increased health risk.
“It’s a conspiracy at the TCEQ of the highest order,” said Tom Smith, of the government watchdog group Public Citizen. “The documents have indicted the management of this commission in a massive cover-up to convince people that our water is safe to drink when it’s not.”
Smith is talking about what happened to residents who live in communities served by utilities like Harris County Municipal Utility District 105. For years, tests performed by the Texas Department of State Health Services showed the utility provided water that exceeded the EPA legal limit for exposure to alpha radiation.
However, the TCEQ would consistently subtract off each test’s margin of error from those results, making the actual testing results appear lower than they actually were. In MUD 105’s case, the utility was able to avoid violations for nearly 20 years, thanks to the TCEQ subtractions.
…
Alpha radiation is emitted from radionuclides such as uranium and radium. While health scientists have said it poses little danger if someone is externally exposed to it, the experts maintain that ingesting even the smallest amount of the particles can cause damage to DNA, and in rare cases, cause cancer.
Cryptogon Readers Sign Up for Hosting with BlueHost
May 21st, 2011Thanks to the owner of searchcellphonenumbersonline.com and an Anonymous user for signing up for hosting with BlueHost. Cryptogon received $180 as a result.
