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.
International, U.S.

Iraq says Gates lied about Iraq asking U.S. to stay

“Mr. Maliki rejected Gates’ demand, saying that Iraq will deal with the issue based on the security pact (signed between Washington and Baghdad).”-Ali al-Dabbagh, Iraqi Government Spokesman

Iraqi officials say they did not ask the United States to keep troops past the 2011 withdraw date, in fact they say U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates “demanded” that U.S. troops stay.  According to Iraqis Gates made the demand directly to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

On April 7, Gates went to Iraq and made comments to U.S. troops that made it sound like the Iraqis wanted U.S. forces to stay.  Gates even made it sound like the Iraqis needed to hurry up and decide: “If folks here are going to want us to have a presence, we’re going to need to get on with it pretty quickly in terms of our planning.”

Iraqi officials now say that Gates’ visit was solely to push them to ask for the U.S. troops to stay.  There are reports that Kurds in northern Iraq asked U.S. forces to stay, but under the current U.S. security pact with Iraq, only the Iraqi parliament can ask U.S. forces to stay.  Even Kurdish officials agree with that: “It is not related to Iraq’s Kurdish officials and they have no role in the US forces’ stay or exit. It is up to the central government to decide on the issue.”-Sabah Barzandi, member of the parliament of Iraq’s Kurdistan region

Since Robert Gates made his statements, Iraqis have been demonstrating against the U.S., and direct attacks on U.S. bases have increased.  Today, April 16, thousands of Iraqis protested in Baghdad.  There were so many that officials had to open up sports stadiums to the protesters: “We have specified Al-Shaab, Kashafa and Zawraa stadiums as permitted sites for demonstrations in Baghdad…”-Major General Qassim Atta

Fukushima, Technology

Germany will dump nuke plants ASAP

The German government announced that they will end the use of nuclear power plants as soon as possible.

Germany is prepared to spend the money necessary to make renewable clean energy sources their main power supply by 2020.  Germany will keep its coal and natural gas fire electrical plants in operation.

Idaho, U.S.

Yellowstone Magma expanding?

In a National Geographic article, researchers say the magma under Yellow National Park, is even bigger than before.

The latest scans of the super volcanic plume under Yellowstone, measured electrical conductivity, and is described as being like a giant medical CT scan.

Scientists now say the super volcanic plume extends 643km (400 miles), that’s increased from the 241km (150 miles) detected in 2009.  Back then scientist predicted that the plume was actually larger, and the new scanning technique proved them correct.

They also discovered that hot, salty water surrounds and is mixed in with the plume.

 

Fukushima, Technology

Geiger Counters don’t work on Food!

“Just pointing a measuring device at your food before dinner is pretty much meaningless.”-Katayama Atsushi, Japan Society for Analytical Chemistry.

The Japanese Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry says you should use scintillation counters to detect iodine-131 in milk and vegetables.  Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometers should be used to trace uranium.  Nitric acid and dehydrated samples are turned to ash over a 24-hour period in temperatures exceeding 400 degrees Celsius, in order to detect strontium.

“Just to know what the radiation levels are in your home, it’s relatively straightforward, but when you get to measuring it in food, milk and soil it gets much more complicated.”-Joseph Rotunda, Thermo Fisher Scientific

You could spend $400.00 on a Geiger counter just to measure radiation in and around your home, but lots of things can affect the reading.  Things like concrete walls and driveways, granite counter tops and even cell phones.

To save some money, if you don’t think it’s safe to eat, don’t eat it.

Fukushima

Toyota to halve production in Japan

“As (Toyota) continues to address its production situation in Japan following the disaster, it has decided that vehicle production from May 10 to June 3 will proceed at approximately 50 percent of normal.”-company statement

Basically the situation for “key component suppliers” (parts makers) is still too unreliable to resume full production.

Toyota says it will continue to evaluate the situation, and make the necessary adjustments to production.

International

Tsunami sirens may not have worked properly, Tsunami drills trained victims to expect small wave

Japanes reporters, crawling through the wreckage left behind by the March 11 tsunami, might have stumbled onto evidence of a failed tsunami warning system.

Reporters have written about finding bodies amid what’s left of residences, still wearing their natural disaster gear, like helmets.  The odd thing is it looks like they barricaded themselves in their homes, instead of running to higher ground.

A reporter for ‘Spa!’, in Japan, said there are two kinds of tsunami sirens, one for waves under three meters, and a more shrill siren for waves over three meters.

For the small waves people are told to stay inside, which is what most of the victims, found in the rubble of their homes, did.  Also, many of the residential areas were close enough to higher ground that the people should have been able to survive, if they knew a giant tsunami was coming.

The evidence suggests that for some reason the tsunami sirens indicated a small wave.  Or, as one reporter pointed out, when tsunami drills are carried out, they’re only for small waves, suggesting that if the siren for the giant wave sounded, most people didn’t know what else to do, based on their training.

People had been trained so often to react to small tsunami, that, even though they had been told “when you hear the big tsunami siren sound run to the hills”,  they automatically followed the small tsunami training.

 

Fukushima

Japanese public transport employees caught not paying for tickets

8 employees were fired, and 25 had their pay cut by 30%, for not paying for tickets on their own monorail service.

JR East Tokyo Monorail, says most of the employees were in management positions.  They would board the train for work, swipe their pay cards, then once at work, would use the company computers to delete the charge.

One employee almost got away with 590,000 yen worth of fares.  Unpaid fares have cost JR East over 1.2 million yen.

Business/Economics, International

Business owner dedicated to customer service to the rescue in Japan

“Since these people are having trouble getting to stores, we will bring the store to them.”-company spokesperson

A convenience store company, called Lawson, is sending “Mobile Lawson” stores to the areas of Japan devastated by the March 11 disasters.

The company is using food service trucks, originally designed for construction sites, to deliver food and other items.  The trucks are small (you can say ‘cute’) by U.S. standards, but they get the job done.

Company officials say they have been considering such an idea, as a way of expanding their business, before the disasters struck.

Fukushima

TEPCo swimming against a current of contaminated water. Radiation levels at Max!

Tokyo Electric Power Company can not keep up with the amount of contaminated water coming from their Fukushima Daiichi reactors.  So far they’ve removed 660 tons of water, but the reactors and fuel pools hold more than 80,000 tons combined, and the water continues to pour out.

Water levels in the tunnel connected to Reactor 2 has risen to a point higher than before they started removing the water.  They still aren’t sure where the water is coming from, but suspect damaged reactor vessels.

On top of that they’re now saying the radiation levels in the contaminated water are maxed out (they used a term similar to that).  As of 15 April, the radiation levels in the leaked water are now 38 times what they were last week.  TEPCo also thinks the contamination is getting into the groundwater, not just the Pacific Ocean.

It turns out that TEPCo was testing radiation levels, in the leaked water, only once per week!  They say they will now test three times per week.

The high radiation indicates that not only could reactor vessels be damaged, but fuel rods have melted.

TEPCo says they won’t be able to transfer recovered water, to a waste plant, until the end of next week.

 

Fukushima

Atlantis Syndrome: Officials confirm land sunk after 9.0 quake

The Geographical Survey Institute surveyed 28 benchmarks in three prefectures, hit by the 11 March earthquake.

They confirmed that the land has dropped as much as 84cm (33 inches, just under 3 feet).

The land sunk in Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate Prefectures.  They are now dealing with high tide flooding caused by the loss of their sea walls, and their sunken land.