Fukushima Update: Japanese Facing Severe Personal Health Problems

The one and continuing underlying factor in this mega disaster, and the two featured stories, has to be the woefully inadequate, if not criminally complicit performance of the Japanese Government.

What should be noted in the report from Fairewinds Associates, is that the data published was as a result of samples collected and submitted by ordinary citizens.

Arnie Gunderson: The data in Mr. Kaltofen's paper came from citizens. It came from farmers. It came from scientists. It came from bloggers. It was an effort by individuals and not government. I think if we had relied on the government to get us this information, we never would have gotten it. So it is an important achievement for all of us, to recognize that together, using the internet, we can all provide information for scientists to use, to come to rational decisions on public policy.

Staying with government and seemingly its willingness to accept whatever it is told by the nuclear industry, this from the second article, Women Fight to Save Fukushima's Children.

The announcement followed approvals from the government given on the basis that the company had taken sufficient measures after the reactor automatically shut down on Oct. 4, due to procedural errors in repair work.

And I have to make mention, this is the same government that has allocated twenty seven million dollars extra, to assist the Japanese whaling fleet in its endeavour to slaughter whales this coming season in the South Atlantic. 4 min video


The meat from which, they can't sell because nobody wants the wretched stuff. The only reason for this is that the Japanese government doesn't want to loose face by conceding defeat to Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

One might have thought the government had more urgent priorities, starting with doing everything imaginable to safeguard the most vulnerable, the next generation, today's children.

Scientist Marco Kaltofen Presents Data Confirming Hot Particles from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

Washington, DC - October 31, 2011 – Today Scientist Marco Kaltofen of Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) presented his analysis of radioactive isotopic releases from the Fukushima accidents at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA). Mr. Kaltofen’s analysis confirms the detection of hot particles in the US and the extensive airborne and ground contamination in northern Japan due to the four nuclear power plant accidents at TEPCO’s Fukushima reactors. Fairewinds believes that this is a personal health issue in Japan and a public health issue in the United States and Canada.

Transcript:

Hi, I'm Arnie Gundersen from Fairewinds.

It is October 31st, 2011. This is a video that contains scientific information that we have been wanting to share with you for a long time. Today, in Washington D.C. at 8:30 in the morning, scientist Marco Kaltofen gave a presentation to some doctors who are part of the American Public Health Association. The paper is now on our website, next to this video.

To summarize the paper, citizens, some doctors and scientists, some bloggers, some farmers, around the world provided samples to Mr. Kaltofen who analyzed them for Fukushima radiation. An example of what he found is a slide that contains air filters from cars in Japan and in the United States. Cars in the United States hardly have any radiation in their air filters. Cars in Tokyo had quite a lot, way too much. Cars in Fukushima Prefecture were incredibly radioactive.

Now I think it is important because the nuclear industry will say, well everything is radioactive and therefore we should not worry. Well, the Seattle data shows that not everything is radioactive. And it shows that the people in Japan received enormous exposures of particles into their lungs and into their digestive systems, during the course of the accident.

Another piece of information is that Fairewinds viewers were able to send in children's shoes from Japan. Mr. Kaltofen has data that clearly show that the concentration of cesium on the kid's shoelaces was astronomically high, around 80 disintegrations per second. What does that mean? Kids tie their shoes, their hands get radioactive and it goes into their G.I. tract. If it is on the ground, it is in the dust in the playground and it is in their lungs. I think that between the two, the air filters and the children's shoes, it shows that there is a severe personal health problem in Japan that will manifest itself in cancers over the next 10 or 20 years.

Now Mr. Kaltofen did not just look at Japan. He set up monitoring stations in the United States as well. Two of the three monitoring stations in the United States did show hot particles in the air in April. Since then, there have not been any hot particles. But in April, it is clear that, at the worst of the accident, hot particles were wafted across the Pacific and deposited in Seattle and in Boston at least. There is also data that indicates contamination on the ground in the Cascades, which are a mountain range right up against the Pacific Ocean.

So I think we have two problems here. In Japan, there is a personal health issue and what that means is that individuals have received enough radiation that there is going to be a statistically meaningful increase in cancers in Tokyo and especially in Fukushima Prefecture.

In the United States, it is a different story. It is a public health issue and not a personal health issue. What that means is that we will never know who is the individual who got cancer from Fukushima. But we can be sure that the radiation did reach here and that there will be an increase in cancers, especially on the West Coast where the Rocky Mountains stopped most of the radiation and deposited it on the ground.

So, this paper was given to the American Public Health Association. And here it is a public health issue. We cannot run and we cannot hide. But the radiation is up and down the West Coast and then also scattered about the rest of the United States.

In Japan, it is a different story. They need to aggressively go after the contamination that has been discovered. It is so obvious on these air filters and on children's shoes. It takes a concerted national effort, not a haphazard effort of chasing hot spots, in order to reduce the amount of radioactivity that is on the soil and in the air in Japan right now.

And the last thing the paper shows is that it is wrong to have a 10 mile evacuation planning zone. Clearly, the damage can extend out as far as Tokyo. We need to look at emergency planning and evacuations well beyond the 10 miles that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission uses here and the 12 miles that the Japanese used during the accident. You may recall that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that Americans needed to evacuate 50 miles from Fukushima at the peak of the accident. Well, if it is good enough for Americans living in Japan, that same criteria should be good enough for Americans living in the United States.

The data in Mr. Kaltofen's paper came from citizens. It came from farmers. It came from scientists. It came from bloggers. It was an effort by individuals and not government. I think if we had relied on the government to get us this information, we never would have gotten it. So it is an important achievement for all of us, to recognize that together, using the internet, we can all provide information for scientists to use, to come to rational decisions on public policy.

This November we are asking for your support so we can continue our scientific analysis and these educational videos. There is a donate button on the Fairewinds site and we would appreciate it if you considered a financial contribution.

Thank you very much. We will keep you informed. Fairewinds

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Women Fight to Save Fukushima's Children
By Suvendrini Kakuchi
06 November 2011

Tokyo - Hundreds of Japanese women have been converging on the Japanese capital demanding better relief for some 30,000 children exposed to nuclear radiation by the Fukushima meltdown.

"Official recovery policy focuses on decontamination rather than protecting the health of those most vulnerable - children and pregnant women," activist Aileen Mioko Smith told IPS.

"Our meetings with officials to force faster evacuation programmes for high-risk groups are only met with promises to clear radioactive waste. This is totally irresponsible," said Smith, who leads the non-government organisation (NGO) Green Action Japan.

Smith criticised the government and the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, for focusing energies on defusing public tension by promising to reduce exposure in affected areas to below one millisieverts (a measure of radiation) per year.

On Wednesday, TEPCO admitted that one of the Fukushima reactors showed presence of radioactive material from a burst of nuclear fission, indicating fresh leakage.

After the meltdown - caused by an earthquake and tsunami on Mar. 11 - the acceptable radiation standard for Fukushima residents was lowered to 20 millisieverts per year, and activists like Smith allege that this was done to minimise the number of evacuees.

Smith said the new standards should, in any case, not have been applied to vulnerable sections such as children and pregnant women.

Some 36,000 people have been evacuated from a 22-km radius of the plant while many more of Fukushima’s two million people may be affected, Smith said.

"We will not give up till the government changes its callous attitude," vowed Smith, participant in a women’s sit-in and protest before the ministry of economic trade and industry that determines Japan’s nuclear policy.

The core of the protestors was made of about 200 women from Fukushima who sat on a three-day sit-in outside the Tokyo office of Japan’s ministry of economy. When that ended on Oct. 30, they appealed to women from all over Japan to join them for week-long protests until Sunday.

Women from 47 prefectures have collected more than 6,000 signatures to support their demands. They have been handing out fliers to passers-by that contain detailed information on the dangers faced by the residents of Fukushima.

Rika Mashiko, an evacuee from Fukushima, explained that she joined the protests along with her seven-year-old daughter to show solidarity and to express her disappointment with the government. Her husband continues working in Fukushima to maintain financial stability.

Mashiko left her organic farm in Miharumachi, 50 km from the damaged nuclear reactor, six months ago. She resides in Tama, a Tokyo suburb and works part-time to support herself and her daughter.

"I receive no financial support from the government because officially I left voluntarily - though I am a nuclear refugee. I do not trust the newly established standards for radioactive exposure in Fukushima and cannot risk the health of my young child," she told IPS..

The women have linked post-disaster recovery with achieving stronger protection measures against radiation, transparency and honesty from government officials. They are pushing for a national pledge to end nuclear power generation in Japan.

Ayako Ooga, a representative of the NGO ‘Fukushima Mothers Against Radiation,’ said the success of the government’s recovery programme is under test.

"The way they are going about dealing with the nuclear crisis is not the recovery we envisage," she said. "The policy is to placate the people, but what we want is honest facts from the government."

Ooga fled on Mar. 11 from her home that fell within 10 km of the accident site. She explained to IPS that the high levels of radiation being reported from her area made it impossible for her to return.

"We want an assurance that a similar accident will never happen again in Japan and that the government will do more to protect our friends and relatives from radiation," she said.

The women know they have a long battle ahead. A rude shock came on Nov. 1 when the Kyushu Electric Power Company announced that it would restart a faulty reactor at the Genkai nuclear power station in Saga prefecture, southwestern Japan.

The announcement followed approvals from the government given on the basis that the company had taken sufficient measures after the reactor automatically shut down on Oct. 4, due to procedural errors in repair work.

The plant is at the heart of a scandal following allegations that the utility had manipulated public opinion and pressurised employees to approve restart of the plant.

Hatsumi Ishimaru, a farmer from Genkai who headed a campaign against the restarting of the plant, is among those who have came to Tokyo to join the women's protest.

Ishimaru, who is party to a lawsuit filed by the locals against the Genkai plant, told IPS that she will not rest until her farming village of 3,000 people is rid of the nuclear power generator.

"Women are, today, at the forefront of the anti-nuclear campaign. We value life more than economic returns," she said. ipsnews

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Benny Hinn Eat Your Heart Out And Where Do I Get Me Some Of That Anointing Water?

We have already had the 'pray away the gay' from the evangelical crazies of America. Now it appears we have 'pray away the HIV' from some dodgy geezer in Africa, or as the BBC describes him, Nigeria's third richest clergyman, No kidding, whodathunkit?

The only difference between these two charlatans, is one is federally funded and the other ain't. Oh, and perhaps I should mention, in the case of the latter, the results can be fatal.

At least three people in London with HIV have died after they stopped taking life saving drugs on the advice of their Evangelical Christian pastors.

The women died after attending churches in London where they were encouraged to stop taking the antiretroviral drugs in the belief that God would heal them, their friends and a leading HIV doctor said. BBC

So having read the BBC report, I decided to have look at Pastor T B Joshua and his Synagogue Church Of All Nations (SCOAN) and of course, the Pastor's universal cure all, none other than his own branded Snake Oil Anointing Water.

Anointing Water

At SCOAN London, we have seen practical proof that God can truly use any medium to express Himself. To His power, nothing is impossible. One of the mediums He is using in The SCOAN is the Anointing Water. Every week the Anointing Water is ministered in our services and God is using it mightily to bring healing, deliverance and freedom to people. You can read some testimonies of those God has healed, delivered and set free through the Anointing Water in SCOAN London here. Anointing Water

Not bad hey? And free too, well sort of.

Hi, yep I confirm that’s how they do it with the anointing water. It’s different depending on your nationality (so much for no favouritism in the church – James 2).
Nigerian members have to buy a large photo frame which a picture of TB Joshua and a “Quotable quote”. Its classic TB Joshua. He says its all about the words, it’s not about me, well why the picture then??? If it really is about the words on the frame then why on earth have a picture of him? I think it cost members N2000 ($13) or so. If you buy a frame then you wait after the church service and TB Joshua comes round and gives you the water.

That small revelation coming courtesy of dedicated site, TB Joshua Watch. Yes, I can well imagine he needs a bit of watching.

'Eat your heart out Benny Hinn,' my message in the header. Well, after finding this bit below in the comments section, perhaps you will allow me a mini-header?

Eat Your Heart Out Doctors McCann

COMING SOON…WRISTBAND WITH AUDIO DEVICE
The man of God raised people’s spirits when he talked about the new Anointing Wristband and its audio devices that will caution wearers about their behaviour and movements. According to him, the wristband is devised to remind you about your prayers, to ask you to check your tyres or to stop because of armed robbers.

I’m not even joking. TB Joshua Watch

As opposed to TB Joshua Fans UK Blog. I give up! Don't Jesoids talk utter shite.


And to put it all in the right perspective, a few miracle cartoons. I love these first two, they are such shades of Richard Dawkins, when he was questioning the head charlatan at Lourdes about past miracles. After the soothsayer had rhymed off a list of miracles, Dawkins said, ''But none of them provable, I mean nobody has grown a new leg or the like?

h/t http://twitter.com/#!/Atheist_Tweeter h/t Maren for the clip.

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Women's Reproductive Rights: America The Next Nicaragua

Generally speaking, men shouldn't be within a hundred feet of issues surrounding women's reproductive rights. Politicians shouldn't be within a thousand yards, and US politicians shouldn't be within a thousand miles of them. Because there is a no more disingenuous festering bowl of pus on this earth than the American politician.

One only has to remember the case of Terri Schiavo to have that confirmed. For those not familiar with that appalling spectacle; Terri Schiavo was a cabbage, a carcass kept functioning by purely artificial means. A carcass that is until she became cause celebre and political tool for every cheap huckster in congress. Congress in actual fact being recalled to make cheap politics over the affair. George Bush cut short his holiday to fly back to Washington to get involved, that should tell you enough, fuck me! he didn't manage to do that when Louisiana was drowning.

And the bottom line to all this, when they finally autopsied the woman? She had an atrophied brain the size of a walnut, she had been clinically dead for years. Government involvement in the Terri Schiavo case

Watch these three short clips and then tell me that men should debate women's issues. Nor for that matter, batshit crazy evangelical, concerned vaginas for America




Frist Diagnosing Terry Schiavo on Senate Floor

George W. Bush Discusses Terri Schiavo: Today millions of Americans are saddened by the death of Terri Schiavo. Laura and I extend our condolences to Terri Schiavo's families. I appreciate the example of grace and dignity they have displayed at a difficult time. I urge all those who honor Terri Schiavo to continue to work to build a culture of life, where all Americans are welcomed and valued and protected, especially those who live at the mercy of others. The essence of civilization is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak. In cases where there are serious doubts and questions, the presumption should be in the favor of life. The most solemn duty of the American President is to protect the American people.

George W Bush on the value of life!

Michele Bachmann refers to Terri Schiavo as a "healthy" woman. The audience clearly disagrees.

Do I need to highlight the involvement of Satan's spawn in all this, the Holy Order of misogynist arse bandits, boy buggerers extraordinaire? No, one only has to read the Nicaragua post to lay the blame at the right door.

Congress Contemplates Brutal Anti-Abortion Law
By Rick Ungar
Oct. 12, 2011

In what would be a major and potentially deadly change in American healthcare policy, The House of Representatives will take up H.R. 358 —The Protect Life Act—this week. The bill would permit federally funded hospitals to refuse abortion services even to women who would likely die without the procedure.

As the law currently stands, hospitals are required by EMTALA to provide emergency care to anyone who walks through their doors. If a hospital is unable or unwilling to perform a necessary procedure, it is obligated to stabilize the patient and then transfer the individual to a facility that can perform the procedure and agrees to do so. As a result of the EMTALA requirements, the 600 plus Catholic hospitals in the nation who are unwilling to perform abortions on religious grounds, even in life-threatening circumstances to the mother, are obligated to transfer that patient in need of such a procedure to a hospital that agrees to perform the required operation.

If The Protect Life Act were to pass, this would no longer be the case. Hospitals that do not care to perform abortions, for whatever reason and even when the procedure is required to save the life of the mother, would be legally permitted to simply do nothing.

While one might anticipate that hospitals refusing to perform abortions would transfer a patient in life-threatening circumstances to a facility willing to perform the abortion, I wouldn't be so sure.

In 2009, a Phoenix-based Catholic bishop excommunicated Sister Margaret McBride, an administrator at St. Joseph's Hospital, for authorizing an abortion in the case of a woman who was suffering from pulmonary hypertension and was likely to die without the procedure. In stating his reasons for this extreme act, the Archdiocese issued a statement saying, in part:

An unborn child is not a disease. While medical professionals should certainly try to save a pregnant mother's life, the means by which they do it can never be by directly killing her unborn child. The end does not justify the means.

The direct killing of an unborn child is always immoral, no matter the circumstances, and it cannot be permitted in any institution that claims to be authentically Catholic.

Given this line of thought, should The Protect Life Act become the law, it seems unlikely that such a Catholic institution would voluntarily send a patient over to another facility knowing that an abortion was going to take place.

And the bill doesn't stop at allowing hospitals to let mothers face death. It would also deny federal funding to a health care plan that offers to pay for abortion services even in life-threatening circumstances.

Dawn Laguens, executive vice-president for communications at Planned Parenthood, summed it up quite nicely:

This is just a demolition derby for women's health care. To first say, 'We won't even treat you if you show up needing a life-saving abortion,' and then to eliminate health insurance that might have saved your family from bankruptcy is a real one-two gut punch to women in these tough economic times.

So, how is it that the sponsors and backers of this bill happen to be the same people who constantly rail against government intruding in our lives yet would now empower medical facilities to allow a woman to die if their respective religious beliefs do not match up?

Demolition derby, indeed. motherjones

Related: Of Abortion, and Women as the Ultimate Source of Evil by Arthur Silber

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A re-up from October 2007

"Here there is a lot of religiosity but only a little Christianity." : Nicaragua

Why I hate Religion, chapter Six Hundred and Sixty Six.


Last November it became a crime for a woman to have an abortion in Nicaragua, even if her life was in mortal danger. So far it has resulted in the death of at least 82 women. Rory Carroll reports on the fight to have the law changed

González was not stupid and did not want to die. She knew her chance of surviving the butchery was small. But being a practical woman, she recognised it was her only chance, and took it. The story of why it was her only chance is an unfolding drama of religion, politics and power that has made Nicaragua a crucible in the global battle over abortion rights. This central American country has become the third country in the world, after Chile and El Salvador, to criminalise all abortions. It is a blanket ban. There are no exceptions for rape, incest, or life- or health-threatening pregnancies.



Pope Benedict XVI welcomed the ban but added that women should not suffer or die as a result. "In this regard, it is essential to increase the assistance of the state and of society itself to women who have serious problems during pregnancy."more

And with those words washed his hands of all moral obligation to women.

it is essential to increase the assistance of the state and of society itself to women who have serious problems during pregnancy."

It's Nicaragua you disingenuous fuckdog, the second poorest country in Latin America.

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Something a Little Different: Happy Genocide Day! by Thom Hartmann

I've listened to the bloke often enough, but this is the first time I have come across him in print. You might want to give him a try. Or you may just want to watch Eddie Izzard below.

Happy Genocide Day!
10 October 2011
by: Thom Hartmann, Truthout | Op-Ed

"Gold is most excellent; gold constitutes treasure; and he who has it does all he wants in the world, and can even lift souls up to Paradise."

- Christopher Columbus, 1503 letter to the king and queen of Spain.

"Christopher Columbus not only opened the door to a New World, but also set an example for us all by showing what monumental feats can be accomplished through perseverance and faith."

- George H.W. Bush, 1989 speech

If you fly over the country of Haiti on the island of Hispaniola, the island on which Columbus landed, it looks like somebody took a blowtorch and burned away anything green. Even the ocean around the port capital of Port au Prince is choked for miles with the brown of human sewage and eroded topsoil. From the air, it looks like a lava flow spilling out into the sea.

The history of this small island is, in many ways, a microcosm for what's happening in the whole world.

When Columbus first landed on Hispaniola in 1492, virtually the entire island was covered by lush forest. The Taino "Indians" who loved there had an apparently idyllic life prior to Columbus, from the reports left to us by literate members of Columbus's crew such as Miguel Cuneo.

When Columbus and his crew arrived on their second visit to Hispaniola, however, they took captive about two thousand local villagers who had come out to greet them. Cuneo wrote: "When our caravels . . . where to leave for Spain, we gathered . . . one thousand six hundred male and female persons of those Indians, and these we embarked in our caravels on February 17, 1495 . . . For those who remained, we let it be known (to the Spaniards who manned the island's fort) in the vicinity that anyone who wanted to take some of them could do so, to the amount desired, which was done."

Cuneo further notes that he himself took a beautiful teenage Carib girl as his personal slave, a gift from Columbus himself, but that when he attempted to have sex with her, she "resisted with all her strength." So, in his own words, he "thrashed her mercilessly and raped her."

While Columbus once referred to the Taino Indians as cannibals, a story made up by Columbus - which is to this day still taught in some US schools - to help justify his slaughter and enslavement of these people. He wrote to the Spanish monarchs in 1493: "It is possible, with the name of the Holy Trinity, to sell all the slaves which it is possible to sell . . . Here there are so many of these slaves, and also brazilwood, that although they are living things they are as good as gold . . ."

Columbus and his men also used the Taino as sex slaves: it was a common reward for Columbus' men for him to present them with local women to rape. As he began exporting Taino as slaves to other parts of the world, the sex-slave trade became an important part of the business, as Columbus wrote to a friend in 1500: "A hundred castellanoes (a Spanish coin) are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten (years old) are now in demand."

However, the Taino turned out not to be particularly good workers in the plantations that the Spaniards and later the French established on

Hispaniola: they resented their lands and children being taken, and attempted to fight back against the invaders. Since the Taino where obviously standing in the way of Spain's progress, Columbus sought to impose discipline on them. For even a minor offense, an Indian's nose or ear was cut off, se he could go back to his village to impress the people with the brutality the Spanish were capable of. Columbus attacked them with dogs, skewered them with pikes, and shot them.

Eventually, life for the Taino became so unbearable that, as Pedro de Cordoba wrote to King Ferdinand in a 1517 letter, "As a result of the sufferings and hard labor they endured, the Indians choose and have chosen suicide. Occasionally a hundred have committed mass suicide. The women, exhausted by labor, have shunned conception and childbirth . . . Many, when pregnant, have taken something to abort and have aborted. Others after delivery have killed their children with their own hands, so as not to leave them in such oppressive slavery."

Eventually, Columbus and later his brother Bartholomew Columbus who he left in charge of the island, simply resorted to wiping out the Taino altogether. Prior to Columbus' arrival, some scholars place the population of Haiti/Hispaniola (now at 16 million) at around 1.5 to 3 million people. By 1496, it was down to 1.1 million, according to a census done by Bartholomew Columbus. By 1516, the indigenous population was 12,000, and according to Las Casas (who were there) by 1542 fewer than 200 natives were alive. By 1555, every single one was dead.

This wasn't just the story of Hispaniola; the same has been done to indigenous peoples worldwide. Slavery, apartheid, and the entire concept of conservative Darwinian Economics, have been used to justify continued suffering by masses of human beings.

Dr. Jack Forbes, Professor of Native American Studies at the University of California at Davis and author of the brilliant book "Columbus and Other Cannibals," uses the Native American word "wétiko" (pronounced WET-ee-ko) to describe the collection of beliefs that would produce behavior like that of Columbus. "Wétiko" literally means "cannibal," and Forbes uses it quite intentionally to describe these standards of culture: we "eat" (consume) other humans by destroying them, destroying their lands, taking their natural resources, and consuming their life-force by enslaving them either physically or economically. The story of Columbus and the Taino is just one example.

We live in a culture that includes the principle that if somebody else has something we need, and they won't give it to us, and we have the means to kill them to get it, it's not unreasonable to go get it, using whatever force we need to.

In the United States, the first "Indian war" in New England was the "Pequot War of 1636," in which colonists surrounded the largest of the Pequot villages, set it afire as the sun began to rise, and then performed their duty: they shot everybody-men, women, children, and the elderly-who tried to escape. As Puritan colonist William Bradford described the scene: "It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they [the colonists] gave praise therof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully . . ."

The Narragansetts, up to that point "friends" of the colonists, were so shocked by this example of European-style warfare that they refused further alliances with the whites. Captain John Underhill ridiculed the Narragansetts for their unwillingness to engage in genocide, saying Narragansett wars with other tribes were "more for pastime, than to conquer and subdue enemies."

In that, Underhill was correct: the Narragansett form of war, like that of most indigenous Older Culture peoples, and almost all Native American tribes, does not have extermination of the opponent as a goal. After all, neighbors are necessary to trade with, to maintain a strong gene pool through intermarriage, and to insure cultural diversity. Most tribes wouldn't even want the lands of others, because they would have concerns about violating or entering the sacred or spirit-filled areas of the other tribes. Even the killing of "enemies" is not most often the goal of tribal "wars": It's most often to fight to some pre-determined measure of "victory" such as seizing a staff, crossing a particular line, or the first wounding or surrender of the opponent.

This "wétiko" type of theft and warfare is practiced daily by farmers and ranchers worldwide against wolves, coyotes, insects, animals and trees of the rainforest; and against indigenous tribes living in the jungles and rainforests. It is our way of life. It comes out of our foundational cultural notions.

So it should not surprise us that with the doubling of the world's population over the past 37 years has come an explosion of violence and brutality, and as the United States runs low on oil, we are now fighting wars in oil-rich parts of the world. These are dimensions, after all, of our history, which we celebrate on Columbus Day. But if we wake up, and we help the world wake up, it need not be our future. Truthout

Thom Hartmann
Thom Hartmann is a New York Times bestselling Project Censored Award winning author and host of a nationally syndicated progressive radio talk show. You can learn more about Thom Hartmann at his website and find out what stations broadcast his radio program. He is also now has a daily independent television program, The Big Picture, syndicated by FreeSpeech TV, RT TV, and 2oo community TV stations. You can also listen or watch Thom over the Internet.

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Juan Jose Padilla My Heart Bleeds For You Not: Re-Up

Update: Re-upped to include video in living gory colour. I normally have a severe aversion to gore, but on this occasion I'm quite delighted to make an exception.

Big tip of the hat to video compiler and uploader, meanstreak1977

As you might well imagine, the comments section is dripping with sympathy.

That must have hurt, all those barbs in the back. Poor bull, at least he took half the matadors face with him.
face off!
Nice shoes
haha...awesome. take that you wanker

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I normally reserve my little saying: Isn't it nice, when the twats of this world get theirs? for fallen public figures. But I shall allow myself a little divergence today and say, in the case of Juan Jose Padilla, bullfighter, isn't it nice, when the twats of this world get theirs?

Shame the bull didn't poke your other eye out, you twat.

Juan Jose Padilla, Spain Bullfighter, Suffers Terrifying Face Goring
by Harold Heckle
Oct 8, 2011

MADRID -- A Spanish bullfighter is likely to suffer facial paralysis and lose the sight in one eye after a terrifying goring, the hospital treating him said Saturday.

Television images showed the moment when the bull's left horn ripped into Juan Jose Padilla's lower jaw to emerge beside his protruding eyeball as spectators in the northeastern city of Zaragoza screamed in horror.

Padilla is in a stable condition and recovering from a five-hour operation to repair his face, the statement from the Miguel Servet Hospital said.

It said Padilla, 39, suffered eye, bone, muscle and skin damage when the bull pinned him to the ground and gored him. Surgeons had not been able to repair a severed facial nerve.




TV footage also showed Padilla getting up from the ring, his face gushing blood, as the bull was distracted by bullring assistants.

"I can't see, I can't see anything," the matador shouted as he was rushed to emergency facilities at Zaragoza's Misericordia bullring before being driven to the hospital.

The bull, named Marques, weighed 508 kilograms (1,120 pounds) and was the second fighting beast Padilla had faced late Friday, during the second day of the annual Virgen del Pilar festivities in Zaragoza.

Surgeons used titanium plates and mesh to reconstruct parts of Padilla's facial bone structure and eye socket, doctors Simon Sanz and Nadal Cristobal said in a very detailed, signed statement.

Padilla was lucky the horn did not penetrate his brain, said Vicente Yesteras, one of Padilla's retinue of bullring helpers. huffpo

Previous: A Whale and Bull Story

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Missionaries of Hate: American Evangelicals Spread Gay Hate in Uganda: Updated

3rd update: I had the misfortune a few nights ago, to watch this forty five minute testament to homophobia and hate. And make no mistake, that's exactly what it was, pure hate.

Such hatred that can only be found in the ignorant and backward, especially when the flames for such hatred are fanned by the equally ignorant and backward Evangelical Christian missionaries of America. Who incidentally, don't have a Christian bone in their bodies, whatever one of those might be; Christian bones, not bodies.

I don't want to delve into all the talking points that the documentary raised, but I will make mention of one thing. Towards the end of the documentary, film maker Mariana Van Zeller, asks Scott Lively, Why Uganda? His reply was the usual blah blah, albeit said somewhat sheepishly, picking up on Van Zeller's implied but unasked question.

It doesn't take a great leap of faith to disregard Lively's blah blah, and come up with the answer that Uganda, complete with its ignorant and backward Christian sheep, was that just like the fertile soil of the country itself, so too were its adherents of the Christian faith, equally fertile, where the seeds of homophobia and hatred, once planted, flourish at an alarming rate.

It is without doubt, that Uganda and its people are ignorant and backward. Why else would such stories as these be so easily sourced on the Net?

Witch-doctors reveal extent of child sacrifice in Uganda BBC 15m clip. (Grisly)

Witchdoctors Arrested After Decapitated Woman Found findingdulcinea.com

Uganda - Child Sacrifice Scourge - Witchcraft wunrn.com

Experience tells us that we can never look to these men of God for the truth, for to expect the truth would be too anomalous from people whose whole life is spent living a lie. But perhaps if there were to have be any element of truth in Scott Lively's reply to the question, why Uganda he might have said: Because its so ripe for the picking, or alternatively, I just love shooting fish in a barrel.

I had wanted to bring you an embedded version of the film, by uploading the download I have to Youtube. but for reasons I won't bore you with, the clip has given me all kinds of problems.

The documentary itself, Missionaries of Hate, is quite a rare bit of film online, however I managed to track down a stream in three parts that can be viewed here. Alas, and for a change from some of my recommendations, where I carry the disclaimer ''UK only I'm afraid'' this is the complete opposite, and for copyright reasons is unavailable in the UK.

Perhaps someone outside the UK would click the link and please let me know if it can be viewed at all. It is available however for download at the link below. One link on the blog and another in the comments section, and both links good.

Another clip that gave me problems, was the four minutes of film from Orwell's 1984, depicting the Two Minutes Hate, did you get that? But for entirely different reasons than mentioned previously. Those problems in the form of, and pray forgive my slipping into a bit of West Cork vernacular, because sometimes nothing else seems to fit the bill as describing the two people that uploaded the clip to Youtube, as miserated. Choosing as they both did to disable the embedded feature, it's not as though they made the thing is it? Even an appeal by me for one individual to enable the embedded falling on stony ground. As I say, miserated.

No harm, where there's a will there's solicitor as they say, I captured the thing and then re-upped it to Youtube, embedded enabled, and it can be viewed below.

Why I felt the Two Minutes so important to the post, is that viewed in conjunction with certain parts of Missionaries of Hate, it becomes a bit of a job to differentiate between the two. The only difference being, one is fiction, and the other ain't.

I shall include a few pictures of the main players at the bottom of the page. I do this in order to get the best out of the post, explained here, (Japanese Embassies Around The World) but an online gallery of Uganda's Righteous Rogues, can be found here.

Unedited

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1st update: This is becoming an ever increasingly topical subject. I shall try and find a few links on the morrow.

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2nd update: Here you go, Rachel Maddow has it all in eight minutes, the murder of gay activist, David Kato, inspired no doubt by, Scott Lively, Richard Cohen and ''The Family.''

The word ''Family'' in any US organisation, being a euphemism for a Jesus loving LGBT hate group.

Previous: Michele Bachmann and The Rise of Neo Nazi Candidates

Missionaries of Hate (2010)




Correspondent Mariana van Zeller travels to Uganda, where many question whether the growing influence of American religious groups has led to a movement to make homosexuality a crime punishable by death.

As an anti-gay movement spreads across the continent, gay Africans and their families face an increasingly uncertain future of isolation, imprisonment or even execution.

The film makes it much easier to understand why the general Ugandan public is so eager to send their peers to jail. If the most prominent spiritual leader in your community made it his life purpose to convince you that there were people coming to eat your poop and recruit your children, you would be against them too. They are only hearing one side of the story and it is the origin of their information that is truly infuriating.

Although Ugandan leaders are deeply offended by the notion, the facts definitively show that American evangelists have played a central role in defining the nation’s hard line against sexual minorities. The documentary focuses on American evangelist Dr. Scott Lively, who is widely credited with installing the dominant notion that homosexuals are after your children.

When asked if he condemns the legislation, Lively says that he condemns the death penalty aspects of the bill, but that overall the bill is a “lesser of two evils” compared to the prospect of having American gay activists do to Uganda what they have done to America.

Visit http://fuckcopyright.blogspot.com/2011/09/missionaries-of-hate-2010.html for streaming or download links and trailer. Or just visit the most remarkable activist site you are ever likely to come across.

Somebody beat me to this one, saved me a job at least.

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Safety Problems in all Reactors Designed Like Fukushima

Fairewinds Introduces a Japanese Language Edition and Identifies Safety Problems in all Reactors Designed Like Fukushima

Fairewinds Introduces a Japanese Language Edition and Identifies Safety Problems in all Reactors Designed Like Fukushima from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

Gundersen expresses concerns that the nuclear industry and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission are not addressing major safety issues that have become evident since Fukushima. These issues include serious design flaws in the BWR Mark 1 containment, fundamental flaws in the Boiling Water Reactor vessel design, and problems with detonation shockwaves. The NRC and the nuclear industry are using a flawed cost benefit computer code that underestimates the value of human life and minimize property damages after an accident, which has the effect of justifying continued operation of reactors without safety modifications.

Also, Fairewinds announces the launch of the Japanese language version of its site, Fairewinds.jp.

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Transcript

Hi. I'm Arnie Gundersen from Fairewinds.

It's been about three weeks since we posted a video, although there have been a couple radio interviews posted. That doesn't mean we haven't been busy here at Fairewinds. I have been doing expert witness testimony but more importantly Maggie and Kevin Hurley have been busy converting Fairewinds.com to Fairewinds.jp which will be a Japanese translation of our website. I’d like to thank a large number of dedicated Japanese speakers who have worked with us in translating all these videos into Japanese. Today is the first day that Fairewinds.jp and Fairewinds.com will be broadcasting the same material. Thank you very much to those volunteers.

In the last several months the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a review of safety as a result of the Fukushima accident. They just published their report in several key areas that they wanted to look at in more depth. That report is on our website but more importantly the Union of Concerned Scientists, acting as a watchdog over the NRC, has issued a critique of that initial nuclear regulatory report. We posted that Union of Concerned Scientists critique as well, and there are important lessons that the NRC has identified but more importantly there are issues that the Union of Concerned Scientists have recognized where the NRC needs to really put their money where their mouth is and not just study safety issues but actually implement safety changes.

Well today what I would like to talk about are four things that are not in the NRC 's report that I really think should be in the NRC's report. They are the containment, the reactor, the explosion and the last thing called Severe Accident Mitigation Analysis. The first thing is the containment on this boiling water reactor and the 35 other boiling water nuclear reactors that are exactly like that. Back in February, about three weeks before the accident, Maggie and I were walking and Maggie said, “You know we are doing a lot of expert reports and we are finding a lot of problems,” and she asked me, “Where do you think the next accident will occur?” I said I don't know where but I know for sure it will be in a Mark 1 boiling water containment. Well that's what the Fukushima reactors were: Mark 1 containments. This picture of a boiling water container was taken in the 70's. This is identical to the Fukushima reactors. Let me walk you through this.

There's two pieces to the containment, the top looks like an upside down light bulb and that's called a drywell. Inside there is where the nuclear reactor is. Down below is a doughnut looking thing called a torus and that's filled almost all the way with water. The theory is that if the reactor breaks steam will shoot out through the light bulb into the doughnut creating lots of bubbles which will reduce the pressure. This thing is called the pressure suppression containment. At the bottom of that picture is the lid to the containment. When it's fully assembled that lid sits on top.
The containment is about 1 inch thick. Inside it is the nuclear reactor that is about 8 inches thick. We will get to that in a minute. This type of containment was designed in the early 70's, late 60's, and by 1972 a lot of people had concerns with the containment. I want to read to you a NRC memo from 1972 that talks about the problems of this pressure suppression containment:

"Steve's idea to ban the pressure suppression containment scheme is an attractive one. However, the acceptance of the pressure suppression containment system by all elements of the nuclear field including regulatory and the advisory committees on reactor safeguards is firmly embedded in conventional wisdom. Reversal of this hallowed policy, especially in this time could well lead to the end of nuclear power. It would throw into question the operation of licensed plants and it would generally create more turmoil than I can stand."

So in the early 70's the NRC recognized this containment system was flawed. In the mid-70's they realized the forces were in the wrong direction: instead of down they were up, and large straps were put into place. Well then in the 80's there was another problem that developed. After the Three Mile Island [accident], they realized this containment could explode from a hydrogen build up. That had not been factored into the design in the 70's, either. What they came up for this containment was a vent in the side of it. The vent is designed to let the pressure out and a containment is designed to keep the pressure in.
So, rather than contain this radioactivity engineers realized if the containment were to survive an explosion, they'd have to open a hole in the side of it called a containment vent. These vents were added in the late 1980's and they were not added because the NRC demanded it, what the industry did to avoid that [demand] was to create an initiative. They put them in voluntarily. That sounds really in fact very proactive, but in fact it wasn't. If the NRC [had] required it, it would have opened up the license on these plants to citizens and scientists that had concerns. By having the industry voluntarily put these vents in it did two things. One, it did not allow any public participation in the process to see if they were safe and the second thing is it did not allow the NRC to look at these vents and say that they were safety related, in fact, it sidetracked the process entirely.

These vents were never tested until Fukushima. This containment was never tested until Fukushima. In fact it failed three times out of three tries. In retrospect, we shouldn’t be surprised.

Looking at the procedures for opening these vents in the event electricity fails requires someone fully clad in radiation gear to go down to an enormous valve in the bowels of plant and turn the crank two hundred (200) times to open it. Now, can you imagine: in the middle of a nuclear accident, with steam, and explosions, and radiation, expecting an employee to go into the plant and turn a valve two hundred times to open it? So, that was the second band-aid fix that failed on a containment that, forty years earlier, was designed too small.

Well, with all this in mind, I think we really need to ask the question: should the Mark 1 containment even be allowed to continue to operate? The NRC’s position is, “Well, we can make the vents stronger.” I don’t think that’s a good idea.

Now, all those issues that I just talked about are related to the Mark 1 containment. The next thing I’d like to talk about is the reactor that sits inside that containment. So, that light bulb and that doughnut are the containment structure. Inside that is where the nuclear reactor is. On a boiling water reactor, the nuclear control rods come in at the bottom. On a pressurized water reactor they come in from the top. All of the reactors at Fukushima, and 35 in the world with this design, come in from the bottom. That poses a unique problem and an important difference that the NRC is not looking at right now. If the core melts in a pressurized water reactor there are no holes in the bottom of the nuclear reactor. It’s a very thick eight to ten inch (8-10 Inch) piece of metal that the nuclear reactor core would have to melt through. But that didn’t happen at Fukushima. Fukushima was a boiling water reactor. It’s got holes in the bottom. When the nuclear core lies on the bottom of a boiling water reactor like Fukushima, or the ones in the U.S., or others in Japan, it’s easier for the core to melt through because of those sixty (60) holes in the bottom of the reactor. It doesn’t have to melt through eight inches of steel. It just has to melt through a very thin-walled pipe and scoot out the hole in the bottom of the nuclear reactor.

I’m not the only one to recognize that holes at the bottom of a boiling water reactor are a problem. Last week an email came out that was written by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission right after the Fukushima accident where they recognized that, if there’s a core meltdown and it’s now lying as a blob on the bottom of the nuclear reactor, these holes in the bottom of the reactor form channels through which the hot molted fuel can get out a lot easier and a lot quicker than a thick pressurized water reactor design. This is a flaw in any boiling water reactor, and the Nuclear Regulatory is not recognizing that the likelihood of melting through a boiling water reactor like Fukushima is a lot more significant than the likelihood of melting through a pressurized water reactor.

The third area is an area we’ve discussed in depth in a previous video. That area is that the explosion at Unit 3 was a detonation, not a deflagration. It has to do with the speed of the shockwave. The shockwave at Unit 3 traveled faster than the speed of sound, and that’s an important distinction that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the entire nuclear industry is not looking at. A containment can’t withstand a shockwave that travels faster than the speed of sound, yet all containments are designed assuming that doesn’t happen. At Fukushima [Unit] 3, it happened. We need to understand how it happened and mitigate against it in the future on all reactors. Now, I measured that. A scale the size of the building against the speed at which the explosion occurred, and determined that that shockwave traveled at around a thousand miles per hour. The speed of sound is around six hundred feet per second (600 ft/sec) so, if this is what I think it is, it could cause enormous damage to a containment. They are not designed to handle it. Yet, the NRC is not looking at that.

So, we’ve got three key areas where the NRC and the nuclear industry don’t want people to look, and [those are, one]: should this Mark 1 containment even be allowed to operate? Two: are boiling water reactors more prone to a melt-through than a pressurized water reactor? And the third is: can containments withstand a detonation shockwave?

If the nuclear industry wants to implement a safety change, they have to do something called a cost-benefit analysis. What that means is the cost to implement the change has to be exceeded by the benefits to society if the change is made. This brings me to the last point today which is called “SAMA,” S, A, M, A. It stands for Severe Accident Mitigation Analysis. It uses a really fancy computer code that calculates exactly what the costs are to society in the event of a big accident. Those costs are in terms of human life, and they’re in terms of damages to property. The computer code is wrong. It’s been known to have been wrong for a long time, but it continues to be in use. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission puts the lowest possible value on a human life of any of the agencies in Washington. And, the cleanup after an accident is also artificially low. The net effect is that when a cost to make a modification is compared against the benefits to society, this computer code distorts the benefits and lowers them. So, it appears that there’s no need to make the change because the costs are too high and the benefits to you and I, and society, are too low. Fukushima has taught us that that’s just not true. The costs to clean up Fukushima are going to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars U.S. [The costs will be] at least two hundred billion dollars U.S. And yet, this computer code that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission uses never, ever, calculates a high number like that. Unless we adjust the cost/benefit analysis, what will happen is: as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission identifies problems that should be corrected, their own computer code will show that it’s not justified, that the risks to society are really too low, that we don’t need to spend that money. The problem is in the computer code, and until we upwardly adjust the cost of a human life, and the cost of damage to property we won’t be able to come up with an effective way of judging the costs and the benefits of these safety modifications.

Well, that about sums it up. There are at least three key areas that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the nuclear industry, both in Japan and the United States, are not looking at: containment design, boiling water reactor vessels, and detonation shockwaves. But, no matter what they look at, if they don’t do the cost/benefit analysis right and properly evaluate the cost to society, none of these changes will be implemented.

Again, I’d like to thank our Japanese viewers and welcome them to Fairewinds.jp, and also to thank all of our viewers over the last one hundred and seventy days, and thank them for watching Fairewinds.com.

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