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.
“We should not only be able to use all our capacities and potentials in the (civilian) nuclear technology, but also export nuclear know-how.”-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
During a speech for ‘National Day of Nuclear Technology’, President Ahmadinejad stated that Iran should master all nuclear technologies. He also said Iran should join other countries, like the U.S., in exporting its nuclear know how.
“The Russians have taken the existence of tectonic plates into consideration in designing the Bushehr nuclear plant.”-Nasser Rastkhah, Atomic Energy Organization of Iran
Recently Russia helped Iran with loading of nuclear fuel rods into their plant. The Bushehr nuke plant is scheduled to power up by May. ‘Sensitive phases of operation’ would be conducted between May 5 through May 10.
Some Chinese farmers have decided to stop fighting Mother Earth’s climate change, and have rented out their farm land to movie studios.
In one area, the farmers gave up farming and now use their land as huge film studios. The former farmers also double as movie extras. They have made enough money to replace their old farm homes with big modern homes.
It’s not only crops that are suffering in China, because of drought. Bee keepers say they’re losing their bees as well.
Honey production is down due to a decrease in flower pollen production, thanks to climate change. Bee keepers say it will also mean a decrease in bees, because pollen is their food.
China has the largest rapeseed field in the world. Rapeseed is used to make canola oil. Farmers there say drought keeps seed production too low for use in canola oil production. It also keeps rapeseed flower growth too low for the bees.
The recent huge aftershock, in Japan, has resulted in one thousand ATMs being shut down.
Japan Post Bank blames it on the power outage caused by a big aftershock on April 7. The power outage caused a computer glitch that shut down the Automated Teller Machines.
More than 14,000 people are still missing, even after a massive three day search by military and police forces. Local governments are begging for another large scale search.
The search will be conducted on April 10. It will involve 22,000 personnel, 50 vessels and 90 aircraft. It will not cover the radiation danger zones.
People of Japan have been driving into the 20km evacuation zone, violating their government’s orders. It’s all because so many people being affected feel they are not being told what is really going on with their homes and animals they left behind. I have links to 2 videos people should watch.
In a 12 minute video journalists enter the area, find packs of dogs, and surprisingly, people driving around.
At the 17km point their Geiger counter alarm goes off. They then pass armored semi-trucks with the drivers wearing gas masks. At 15km the radiation levels go up. They are then stopped by massive quake damage to the road. Driving down another road they come across cattle eating radioactive grass. More earthquake damaged road. We’re only four minutes into the video. Driving through seemingly abandoned cities with quake damaged buildings. Another car with people wearing surgical masks. Tsunami damage. Geiger counters still sounding the alarm. Seven and a half minutes into the video Fukushima DaiNi nuclear plant. Someone’s vegetable garden. At 2.5km radiation spike. A lone dog, they feed it. At 1.8km radiation increases. Cattle loose in the town. 11 and a half minutes in Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. 112 micro sieverts per hour on their counter, 1.5km from plant. This means radiation sickness will show up after 92 days, if you stay. Could be cesium.
There is a 10 minute video where they go right up to the Fukushima Daiichi gates.
They actually walk around the destruction taking Geiger counter readings. They pass road repair crews wearing full contamination suits, how’d you like to patch pot holes dressed like that. Just like the other guys, the Geiger counter goes up the closer they get to the nuke plant. At 1.5km from Fukushima Daiichi their counter goes into the yellow zone. At the gate they are waved off by people in full nuke suits. They drive around the perimeter of the nuke plant, their Geiger counter staying in the yellow zone. At one point it goes over 100 micro sieverts per hour. This video ends with a trip to Chernobyl, in Ukraine, in which they demonstrate that even 25 years later everything there is still radioactive, and, that people are still dealing with genetic mutations in their children (it begins with the scenes of snow and old Soviet tanks).
And the Japanese government wants the media to stop “sensationalizing”? Video’s speak louder than words, Baka!
In Aneyoshi there is a one hundred year old stone tablet that gives a dire warning: “High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants. Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point.”
The families living in Aneyoshi are glad they headed their ancestors advice. But thousands of others suffered the wrath of the tsunami. There are hundreds of these stone tablets all along the coastal areas of Japan. Some are 600 years old.
Many tablets are not as specific as the one at Aneyoshi. Some simply say beware of tsunami, or were blank. Some of those stone tablets have been washed away by the March 11 tsunami, which is an indicator of that it was probably the mother of all tsunamis to hit Japan for the past thousand years.