Japan: Green Tea Exports Banned Due to High Radiation Levels
June 4th, 2011Via: Telecom:
The Japanese government has banned shipments of green tea leaves in four regions after high levels of radioactive caesium were found.
A swathe of Japan’s tea making regions including parts of Tochigi, Chiba and Kanagawa prefecture as well as the whole of Ibaraki were included within the ban, according to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
Green tea plantations were first highlighted as suffering from potential radiation contamination last month following the results of sample tests in Kanagawa prefecture.
The authorities discovered around 570 becquerels of caesium per kilogram in leaves grown in the city of Minamiashigara – compared to the legal limit of 500 – and started a recall of tea products.
Tea leaves are the latest agricultural products in Japan to be affected by problems surrounding the still-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Is This Simply Metal Theft, or Something Else?
June 4th, 2011This seems like a lot of effort to go through for $135 worth of metal that can’t even be sold at scrapyards. The theory is that the thieves will melt the iron down and then resell it. How much will it cost, in terms of fuel, to melt it down? I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing that this crew would be lucky to wind up with enough change to afford Big Macs at the end of the day.
Is the drug-addled-zombie explanation believable?
I hope we’re not going to be looking at headlines about how al qaeda is causing trains to derail, and how this was some kind of dry run.
Via: Taunton Daily Gazette:
A CSX railroad engine en route to a delivery in Taunton’s Myles Standish Industrial Park derailed Wednesday afternoon after thieves cut away two 8-foot sections of solid steel track, authorities said.
No one was injured as a result of the incident, which observers on scene said ranks as the most audacious example of metal theft in recent memory.
…
Smith said he had never come across a similar incident during his 18 years as a railroad professional.
CSX “wreck master” Mark Achorn said much the same.
Achorn, 59, said he has worked in the railroad industry for 37 years and that he’s accustomed to the occasional call about weather-related rail damage, but never one due to outright theft.
…
De Angelis, 56, said what turned out to be an extreme inconvenience in other circumstances could have been “a major disaster.”
He noted that an engine becoming derailed can hit telephone poles and power lines. He also said he dreads to imagine the repercussions a similar act of sabotage could have on a “main line” rail service, such as Amtrak or the MBTA.
More Americans Think Economy Will Never Recover
June 4th, 2011Recover to what? Happy motoring on Chinese credit?
Via: CNBC:
Americans are growing increasingly doubtful about direction of the US economy, according to the latest survey from business-advisory firm AlixPartners.
In fact, an increasing number, some 61 percent, say they don’t expect to return to their respective pre-recession lifestyles until the spring of 2014, if ever.
What’s worse, a full 10 percent said they expect they will never return to pre-recession spending.
That’s a more pessimistic view than last year, when those surveyed expected that they could be back to pre-recession spending levels by the middle of 2013.
“Americans continue to push their expectations for return to a pre-recession ‘normal’ further and further into the future—close enough for comfort, but far enough away to seem realistic,” said Fred Crawford, CEO of AlixPartners. “But as that happens, more and more it seems normal is actually where we are right now.”
Canada: Brigette DePape Protests Harper Government on Senate Floor
June 4th, 2011I’m no fan of sign waving, but this was pretty good. Brigette DePape’s protest was different from the run-of-the-mill pink tutu and bozo wig nonsense that has no chance of ever causing the corporate state to change course. Seeing her in her official uniform, standing there in defiance in front of the Queen’s goon squad, should inspire anyone who is working directly for the enemy. Who knows what you might get up to, publicly or not?!
The article below states, “A stunned room full of dignitaries and invited guests stared in mute astonishment.”
HAHA, that’s beautiful. It sounds like there were some soiled union suits in there.
Brigette DePape
Brigette DePape
Everyone in that room will go to sleep wondering which other people inside the regime are sleepers.
Questions, questions…
Now, is this Resistance? I never put sign waving in Resistance. In this case, however, I think it is. She demonstrated how someone in the regime at a very low level can find themselves with access to something or someone that they would not otherwise ever have. While she didn’t use this access to cause grave harm to the regime, it is possible that her action may cause other government employees to resist in both overt and covert ways.
Via: The Canadian Press:
Paging all protesters!
A 21-year-old Senate page put her job on the line Friday in a silent call for Canadians to give some sober second thought to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s majority Conservative government.
Brigette DePape staged an unprecedented protest on the floor of the Senate chamber, walking out into the red-carpeted centre aisle carrying a red “Stop Harper” sign that she’d pulled from beneath her skirt as Gov. Gen. David Johnston read the new government’s speech from the throne.
The University of Ottawa graduate stood silently holding her hand-painted sign for at least 20 seconds — while the vice-regal made a barely perceptible hitch in his address and a stunned room full of dignitaries and invited guests stared in mute astonishment.
With Harper, RCMP Commissioner William Elliott and Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Walter Natynczyk — among others — looking on, the sergeant-at-arms of the House of Commons finally escorted DePape out of the Senate.
Six seated justices of the Supreme Court of Canada sat in their ermine robes with their backs to DePape, seemingly oblivious to the drama unfolding three paces behind them.
DePape was nearing the end of her year-long job as a page, and the Senate communications staff said her employment has been terminated.
The stunt was well planned, with a news release popping up in the emails of Parliament Hill reporters minutes after the event.
“Contrary to Harper’s rhetoric, Conservative values are not in fact Canadian values,” DePape, calling herself Brigette Marcelle, said in the release.
“How could they be when three out of four eligible voters didn’t even give their support to the Conservatives? But we will only be able to stop Harper’s agenda if people of all ages and from all walks of life engage in creative actions and civil disobedience.”
In an interview later, DePape said she was “extremely nervous.”
“But, I don’t know, there was something inside of me that said, ‘You have to do this.'”
Introducing iCensor: Apple Is Patenting Technology That Will Cripple Its Devices When They Are In the Proximity of ‘A Concert or a Classified Facility’
June 3rd, 2011Forget Apple’s sycophantic entertainment industry boot licking for a moment. Will agents of the state have a kill switch on recording devices as well? Apparently so.
The patent itself, U.S. Patent #20110128384 uses the phrase, “classified facility” as an example of a venue where the devices would be crippled.
(Can you hear that sickening sound? That’s Cheney squealing with joy over this as he rolls in his own slop.)
Don’t ask me how this crippleware will get installed on non Apple digital cameras and other devices, but it will probably involve suitcases of cash and hookers and a number of senators. Hmm. And maybe an appeal to public safety???
Obomb-ya can get up in front of his teleprompters and talk about how we need to innovate and partner with industry to foil the attempts by al Qaeda to conduct surveillance on government buildings, etc. etc.
It’ll be grand. And once Obomb-ya finishes up, why not go for a quick Cinnabon before Dancing with the Stars comes on?
Via: U.S. Patent #20110128384 :
In some embodiments, infrared data can be received and an electronic device can modify a device operation based on the infrared data. For example, an electronic device can disable a function of the device based on received infrared data. In some embodiments, a transmitter can be located in areas where capturing pictures and videos is prohibited (e.g., a concert or a classified facility) and the transmitters can generate infrared signals with encoded data that includes commands temporarily disabling recording functions. Accordingly, devices near the transmitter may be able to detect images to receive the infrared signals and the commands encoded in the signal but those devices may be unable to capture pictures or videos because of the commands.
Related:
Apple Working On a Sophisticated Infrared System for iOS Cameras
Copenhagen Suborbitals HEAT-1X Launched
June 3rd, 2011Via: Copenhagen Suborbitals:
ECB’s Trichet Pushes for a European Finance Ministry
June 3rd, 2011Via: Telegraph:
Jean Claude Trichet has called for the creation of a European finance ministry whose powers to intervene in national economic policy would be “well over and above the reinforced surveillance that is presently envisaged”.
The boss of the European Central Bank (ECB) said that “strengthening the institutions of economic union” was vital to Europe’s future success, in a radical speech that is likely to alarm the UK Government. David Cameron has pledged to halt the creep of European powers.
Mr Trichet, who was speaking after being awarded the annual Charlemagne prize for services to European unity, said that the European Union (EU) needed tougher tools – including the ability to veto national economic decisions – to deal with imprudent member states.
He criticised the system whereby countries are effectively able to ignore EU fiscal austerity measures, “even if this attitude triggers major difficulties for other member countries”. In his vision “it would be not only possible, but in some cases compulsory, for the European authorities… to take themselves decisions applicable in the economy concerned.”
Related: Nigel Farage: Trapped Inside an Economic Prison
China: Teenager Sells Kidney for iPad, Laptop Computer
June 3rd, 2011Via: BBC:
A teenager in China has sold one of his kidneys in order to buy an iPad 2, Chinese media report.
The 17-year-old, identified only as Little Zheng, told a local TV station he had arranged the sale of the kidney over the internet.
Nickname for CIA’s Bin Laden Team: ‘The Manson Family’
June 3rd, 2011Via: Telegraph:
Terrorist hunter Michael Scheuer tells Duncan Gardham and Iain Hollingshead how he was repeatedly ordered not to stop the al-Qaeda chief.
There are not many sane people who can say with confidence that, had a president of America only listened to them, they could have saved $1.3 trillion and many hundreds of thousands of lives. Michael Scheuer can.
During his 22 years in the CIA – three and a half as head of a 18-man Osama bin Laden unit – he told his bosses at Langley on 10 occasions that he had a clear opportunity to kill or capture the terrorist chief. On all 10 he was told to hold his fire.
To look at Scheuer, 59, bespectacled, bearded and apparently every inch the academic and author he has become, you would not guess at his espionage past. The unit he led between 1995 and 1999 was codenamed Alec station, after his son, but it was nicknamed the “Manson family”, after the criminal Charles Manson, for the zeal with which it approached its task.
Major Israeli Shipping Firm Accused by Washington of Doing Illicit Business with Iran
June 3rd, 2011Update: And now: Scandal-Hit Israeli Billionaire Sami Ofer Found Dead
Via: BBC:
Sami Ofer, an Israeli billionaire at the centre of a scandal over business contacts with Iran, has died at his home in Tel Aviv.
Israeli media reported the 89-year-old had passed away after a long illness.
The US last month imposed sanctions on the Ofer Brothers Group, co-owned by Mr Ofer and his brother Yuli, accusing it of selling an oil tanker to a blacklisted Iranian firm.
The Ofers denied any wrongdoing, saying the US had made an unfortunate mistake.
Forbes magazine recently said the brothers were the richest men in Israel with interests in shipping, chemicals, real estate worth $10.3bn (£6.3bn) in total.
—End Update—
Via: Reuters:
A secret note passed in parliament to halt a televised oversight committee meeting has stoked a scandal in Israel over a major shipping firm accused by Washington of doing illicit business with Iran.
Ofer Brothers Group, owned by Israel’s richest family, denied wrongdoing after its surprise inclusion on a U.S. State Department blacklist last week, but its refusal to address a slew of media speculation about past links with Israel’s security services only deepened the mystery.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, seeing influential compatriots charged with undermining the sanctions against Tehran that he has championed, gave a muted response, saying that his government had approved no deals with the Iranians.
Lawmakers met on Tuesday to discuss legal aspects of the case in an economic oversight panel. But the meeting, aired live on television, was adjourned abruptly within minutes after the chairman, Carmel Shama-Hacohen, received a note from an aide.
The freshman legislator, a member of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, went stone-faced and did not reveal its contents.
“Let’s just be clear the note is not from a political figure and not from a business figure,” Shama-Hacohen said, leaving open the possibility of an appeal by the defence establishment.
“It turns out that reality is much more complex, much more complicated and touchy than the average imagination can handle.”
Research Credit: afterhours
