All posts by Hutchins AAron

Born in Deutschland 1965, hometown was Bütthart, parents were not U.S. government employees. However, when father was tricked into joining the U.S. Air Force Civil Service, in 1969, with the promise that we could remain in Germany, we were promptly shipped off to Iran. Due to one of my Iranian educators being disappeared, along with her husband, by the U.S. ally Shah of Iran's Israeli & U.S. created Savak (for the then official terrorist act of promoting the idea that women can vote), and due to my U.S. citizen mother being placed on Savak's Terrorist Arrest List (for supporting the idea that women should vote, at that time the U.S. ally Shah of Iran did not allow women to vote, now they can) we left Iran for the United States in 1973, literally in the middle of the night. At the U.S. Embassy airbase the CIA operated Gooney Bird (C-47) was so packed with other U.S. citizens fleeing our ally Iran (because the Shah gave the OK to arrest any U.S. citizen for such terrorist acts as promoting the concept of voting) that we were turned away by the Loadmaster and had to take a chance on a civilian flight out of Tehran's airport. My father told me he and my mother had three culture shocks; first when they arrived in Germany as civilians, then after being shipped off to Iran as U.S. government employees, then again returning to the United States as unemployed civilians (because so much had changed in the U.S. while they were gone, their only news source was the U.S. Armed Forces Radio & Television Service which heavily censored information about the home front). Since I graduated high school in 1982 I've worked for U.S. government contractors and state & local government agencies (in California), convenience store manager in California, retail/property management in Georgia, California and Idaho. Spent the 1990s in the TV news business producing number one rated local news programs in California, Arizona and Idaho. 14+ years with California and Idaho Army National Guard and the U.S. Air Force. Obtained a BA degree in International Studies from Idaho State University at the age of 42. Unemployed since 2015, so don't tell me the economy has recovered.
Business/Economics, Fukushima, Opinion

Japan Disaster start of Global Great Depression

For a third day, the DOW fell big, along with other U.S. stock markets.  Stock markets around the world being affected. This is because Japan has become the “parts” supplier to the global economy.  Auto parts to electronic chips are made in Japan.  This production has come to a virtual stand still.  One analyst said that if this situation lasts a few weeks (best case) consumers can expect noticeable increases in prices.

It must be remembered that the Great Depression, that hit the United States in the 1930s, was not solely caused by the investment/finance crash of ’29.  What put the U.S. into a Great Depression was the loss of its main industry at the time; agriculture. Because of the quake, tsunami, and now nuclear disaster, Japan has essentially lost its main industries.

Until the Second World War, agriculture was the biggest industry in the U.S.  Most Americans worked in farming, or agriculture related jobs.  The industry was hit by a disaster that was a combination of Mother Earth, and man made.  The plain states, and mid west, had been dealing with a major drought, and,   farming techniques destroyed the top soil.  This is where the term “Dust Bowl” came from.

The result was that hundreds of thousands of Americans lost their jobs and their homes, just from the collapse of the agriculture industry. Combined with the losses of the finance/investment industries (which affected manufacturing) this created the Great Depression.

The World is already in a major financial crisis, bigger than what hit the world prior to the Great Depression in the U.S. (other countries, like Germany had already experience a depression). Now we have the natural/man made disasters that could push the World into a Great Depression.

Never before have the economies of the World been so tied together.  We have a dominoes situation. Japan, being a major parts supplier, could be the dominoe that starts the fall.

Fukushima

Japan expands evacuation area, asks Medical Personnel all over Japan to Help

Japanese Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, says nuclear danger area expanded to 80km (50 miles).

Reports that the U.S. has expanded the area to 90km, Edano could not confirm.

Edano also asking all medical personnel in Japan to prepare to help.  Expectant women have priority.

Fukushima

Defense Minister says Radiation Too High, conducting cooling operations anyway

Japan Defense Minister, Toshimi Kitazawa, just said that radiation levels at Fukushima Daiichi are too high to safely conduct ground operations, as well as aerial operations. Despite the dangerous radiation levels, the situation is so bad that they have decide to re-start cooling operations.

At an altitude of 300 meters (984 feet), 87.7 millisieverts (87,7oo microsieverts) were read.

Police spraying water from their riot control trucks. Japanese Self Defense Forces are bringing in more water trucks, which are being supplied by the U.S. military.  The plan is to alternate between ground and air water spraying.

Spraying with trucks being done from outside the plant because ground radiation levels are too high to get people on site.

Fukushima, Idaho

Idaho National Labratory watching events in Japan, Sea Water may not work

Officials at INL are watching events in Japan very carefully. The INL has their own reactor, and it is the location for the first nuclear plant in the United States.

The INL continues to be active in nuclear power, and clean up, applications.

INL officials say the use of sea water to cool nuclear reactors has never been done before. It is a true last ditch effort.

Fukushima

Police spraying water on Reactor 4, Military dropping water on Reactor 3

Police from Tokyo have begun using their riot control water trucks to spray water on reactor 4, Fukushima Daiichi.

The JSDF has resumed dropping water on reactor 3, despite high radiation levels.  Officials say the overheating situation has become so bad that they had no choice but to have helicopter crews be exposed to high levels of radiation.

Officials say workers on the ground, and helicopter crews are wearing protective clothing.  A lead plate has been attached to the bottom of the CH-47 copter. Officials say reactor 3 requires at least hundreds of dumps of water from helicopters.  This is a logistical problem, regardless of the radiation, which is why they have brought in police, and fire, water trucks.  Another 11 water trucks are heading to the plant.

Fukushima

Nuclear Disaster “…people may be called in to sacrifice their lives”

Robert Alvarez, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, says the situation is so bad that “This is a situation where people may be called in to sacrifice their lives. … It’s very difficult for me to contemplate that but it’s, it may have reached that point.”

The U.S. military has banned service members from coming within 50 miles (80km, that’s much larger area than Japan’s 20-30km) of the Fukushima Daiichi plant.  The U.S. Embassy, in Japan, is tell all U.S. citizens who live near the plant to stay indoors.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said “…the advice the Japanese government is giving…is different than the advice we’d be giving if this incident happened in the United States.”

Fukushima, International

Almost No Time to Escape Tsunami

After watching interviews of tsunami survivors it has become clear that there was very little time between the 9.0 quake and the first tsunami surge.

Most survivors say there was less than 15 minutes from the time of the quake to the tsunami impact.  An environmental activist from the United States, Brian Barnes, says where he was it was less than 7 minutes.  He says most of the people of Otsuchi, where he was, died. The city is wiped out. Barnes survived because he immediately drove to higher ground after the quake, with the tsunami showing up after he got to the top of the hill.

Most survivors say any emergency preparedness training they underwent in the past, did not prepare them for this.