14 July 2011, I tried to access the Idaho Department of Environmental EPA RadNet site. All I got was a “Server Error” message.
I then tried accessing the Idaho Falls RadNet site, directly through the Environmental Protection Agency’s web site. I got an EPA page that said “The requested item was not found on the EPA’s Web Server”.
The U.S. Department of Energy is using helicopters to take airborne radiation samples over Seattle, Washington. Officially this is to establish a “baseline” for any future nuclear “emergency”.
The operation is being paid for by the Department of Homeland Security.
The state of Washington is home to the controversial Hanford nuclear plant. Do a search for information on the plant and you’ll be concerned as well. Could officials know something about the plant’s current condition?
Do Homeland Security officials have some info about a possible terrorist attack involving nukes and the city of Seattle? Or, is the “emergency” they’re talking about one that already happened, in a place called Fukushima, Japan?
Officials claim this airborne radiation “baseline” operation was planned back in 2009. Mmmm
“Iodine level in the rain in Idaho in the United States were 130 times that standard… we are very concerned that radioactive cesium was many times above the standard as well.”–Gerry Pollet, Heart of America Northwest
When the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors exploded in Japan, U.S. officials ensured the public that they would increase radiation monitoring. I’ve reported in earlier postings that most EPA RadNet sites in the western U.S. are shut down, and that other sites can give only limited results.
Now a group based in Washington, Heart of America Northwest, has done their own investigations into contaminated drinking water in Washington, Oregon and Idaho.
In a previous posting I suggested that the people of concerned communities need to get together and have their own testing done, on plants, water and soil, even their own urine. This is what the Japanese have been forced to do, no thanks to the incompetence of their national government. It’s been those grass roots citizen groups in Japan that have been revealing the truth about the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Heart of America Northwest also has some warnings about current nuclear waste programs in the Pacific Northwest, like the dumping of nuke waste in unlined pits.
Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency is ordering Tokyo Electric Power Company to improve working standards for its contracted workers. There are about 3,000 workers struggling to control the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency recently inspected the working conditions at the damaged nuke plant, after continued concerns over protection for workers against radiation exposure.
They found eight main concerns, that TEPCo still hasn’t addressed. The most pressing issue is that TEPCo is still treating contracted workers with a laissez-faire (hands off) attitude. The result is that TEPCo lacks any information on the health and safety conditions of those workers.
The agency discovered that many contracted workers have never been shown how to use protective clothing, and there aren’t enough protective equipment for all workers, like full face masks. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency ordered TEPCo to provide more protective gear, and assign more of its own safety managers to oversee contracted workers.
This issue was reported months ago, and it’s clear that TEPCo has totally ignored the problem proving that it does not care about the safety of workers.
On top of that, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency says TEPCo still hasn’t tested 1,500 workers for radiation exposure, something they were supposed to do months ago.
Many Fukushima cattle farmers are about to go out of business, thanks to highly contaminated plants. After highly radioactive beef was found, and sold, in eight prefectures, it was discovered that all the plants in Fukushima Prefecture are contaminated with high levels of cesium.
Local and national government officials have found that at least eight prefectures got the contaminated beef, and it was sold to consumers. Officials are sure that most of the beef sold to consumers was eaten.
When tracing the source of cesium contamination, officials discovered that the contaminated cows were eating hay grown out in the open in Fukushima Prefecture. Some hay samples had 75,000 becquerels per kilogram of cesium. The national government’s safe limit is 500.
Now cattle farmers are being told to stop using locally grown feed. Many Fukushima farmers say the warning is too little too late. Most farmers will go out of business because they can’t sell anymore cows. If fact this whole issue has caused Japanese cattle prices to crash, so cattle farmers all over Japan are being affected.
Farmers in Fukushima say local and national officials never gave any warnings to cattle farmers. Not even any advice on how they should operate with the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor nearby.
Most officials were concerned mainly with the affects of the nuclear disaster on people, and crops grown for human consumption. It’s now obvious that the safety of crops grown for farm animals were ignored.
Up ’till now cattle were tested only for external radiation, but the contaminated beef came from cows that were internally contaminated, by the locally grown feed, showing no signs of external radiation contamination.
Officials also tested local water sources, but so far have not released the results.
“They [banks] didn’t vote for the bond issue, they didn’t support the bond issue. They’re simply trying to underwrite some of them.”-Paul Sheldon Foote, California State University Fullerton
Professor Foote is explaining that, what he calls “…stupid idea…” bonds/levies, are forms of debt voted on by taxpayers, but funded by investment bankers.
You don’t want local government and school district employees to lose their jobs. You don’t want to see kids lose out on education programs that might be cut. But voting for a levy, or bond issue, means you’re supporting those jobs and education programs purely on debt.
“Local governments draft levy bonds to sell at current market rates to raise capital for work projects.”-eHow money
In fact, it becomes a downward spiral, many bond levies are actually being used to pay off previous bond issues. It has to stop, before there’s no one left who’s willing to invest in the next bond/levy issue.
In fact the debt crisis in California is due in part to investors not wanting to back up any more bond issues: “The state treasurer can not possibly issue every single one of them [bond issues] because, fortunately, the ratings agencies and investors see through it and would not possibly finance every single stupid idea that comes out of politicians!”–-Paul Sheldon Foote, California State University Fullerton
So what’s the answer? An economics professor in the United Kingdom likes what North Dakota has done with its own State Bank: “The answer is, is to use the state bank mechanism for all your capital projects… And [North] Dakota is in fact, in practice, in a way a public bank giving a lead in that respect.”-Rodney Shakespeare
Shakespeare says the public bank in North Dakota charges interest on loans, but the revenue from that interest stays in North Dakota, and does not go out of state to corporate controlled banks.
In a July 11 statement to the media, about Syria, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, used phrases very similar to phrases used in speeches that preceded U.S. led attacks on other countries.
She said Syria’s president was “…not indispensable…”, and that “…he has lost legitimacy, he has failed to deliver on the promises he’s made…”. Clinton also made the obligatory accusation that Syria was getting help from a sponsor of terrorism, Iran.
Clinton is meeting with European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, no doubt they will be talking about military action against Syria. Syria, which included Lebanon, was placed under French control after World War One. The Imperialist French President Sarkozy seems to be interested in regaining all of France’s former colonies.
Syrian officials have countered the statements by Hillary Clinton, saying: “These remarks amount to further proof of the flagrant interference of the U.S. in the internal affairs of Syria.”
July 12, the lower house of the French Parliament approved an extension to the war against Libya. The vote was 482 in favor, only 27 against.
The French Senate will vote next. The war with Libya is costing French taxpayers 1 million Euros per day.
It is a sign of desperation when the leaders of a government throw millions, if not billions in taxpayer money at a war that seems to have no end. The leaders must think that controlling Libya’s oil is the only option for saving their own economy.
“If NATO loses, the consequences are enormous. There are enormous, trillion dollar financial consequences for those NATO member countries that are seen as aggressors and invaders here.”-Franklin Lamb, Americans Concerned for Middle East Peace
Iraqi Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki, told the newly appointed U.S. Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, that he will ask for U.S. troops to stay beyond the original withdraw date.
The Prime Minister said it would be contingent upon the Iraqi Parliament to approve such a request. At least half the members of the Iraqi Parliament have warned of dire consequences if the United States keeps troops in Iraq.
Leon Panetta was in Iraq on July 11, to push the Iraqis to keep U.S. troops in their country, despite the promised pullout by the end of the year.
After the realization that Japanese cattle are internally contaminated with cesium, Miniami-soma City ordered its residents to get checked for internal contamination. Now the Prefecture of Fukushima has ordered all residents to be checked. There are about 2 million people in Fukushima Prefecture.
It’s not just local governments calling for internal radiation checks. The Japanese Atomic Energy Agency has set up a check station in Tokai Village, in Ibaraki Prefecture, to test people coming from Fukushima Prefecture.
It is now apparent that food and water, in Fukushima Prefecture, are contaminated with high levels of cesium.