Category Archives: U.S.

International, Opinion, U.S.

Japanese government holding up Aid Moneys, Red Cross frustrated

‘‘Although it is not the duty of the central government to decide how to distribute the funds, we would like to devise some sort of guidelines to enable speedy distribution.”-Yoshihiro Katayama, Internal Affairs and Communications Minister

In another example that shows Japan is not prepared for disasters, billions of donated money is sitting around waiting for the national (central), and local governments, to figure out what to do with it.  Which is amazing because they were able to deal with a similar situation after the 1995 earthquake, what’s the problem now?

Local governments are complaining about how the money is going to be issued. Also, government officials say they are waiting for the charities to recommend how the money should be used. Did anyone tell the charities?

Idaho, Technology, U.S.

Ancient Nuclear Powered Jet Engine found in Idaho Desert, Proof of Ancient Alien Visitors?

Image

Text: AAron Hutchins

Photos by: Alex Hutchins (click on the pics to make them bigger. More pics, including plaques that explain HTRE, in the Galleries section, click on the INL Nuclear Power Site)

Barely noticeable from the two lane highway, sitting literally in the middle of nowhere, a brick building with some strange caged objects next to it. Getting any closer doesn’t help you identify the metallic two story tall objects, behind locked fences with barbed wire on top. They seem extraterrestrial. Perhaps some ancient Alien visitors left behind their space vehicle?

HTRE-3

It’s like something out of X-Files. But this isn’t Area 51, in Nevada.  It’s not Roswell, New Mexico.  It’s eastern Idaho, and today is windy and cold.  As my son Alex said, “It’s Big Wind.”

As far as ‘ancient’ goes, well, some people might think 1950s is ancient.  That’s when the strange twisted metal craft first appeared. Extraterrestrial?  Many people in the 1950s thought the scientists of the day were out of this world with their crazy ideas, like nuclear powered jet aircraft.

Taking Exit 93 off Interstate 15, turn west towards Arco. Stay on Highway 26 for about 40 miles.  As you drive the lonely 40 miles you’ll pass the big “Welcome to the INL” sign. Then you’ll come to an intersection, make a left, just follow the arrows to Arco. You’ll see building complexes to your right, that’s part of the main Idaho National Laboratory complex.

INL Entrance

At that point pay attention to your left. You should see a lone building in the distance, EBR-1, the world’s first nuclear reactor. That’s where the strange alien vehicle looking things are. There should be a left turn lane coming up, with signs for EBR-1.  Make the turn, then another left turn lane, again follow the sign for EBR-1.

It’s a desolate place, my son and I were the only ones there that windy, cold day.  We passed a couple of parked cars on the roadside, with no one in them, out in the middle of nowhere, mmm.

EBR-1

There they are, like something left behind, and forgotten, by some advanced species, in the middle of the vast, windy East Idaho desert, HTRE-1, 2 & 3.  The three huge Heat Transfer Reactor Experiments units making up world’s first nuclear powered turbine engine. Intentionally twisted metal, big pipes, gigantic turbos, and two little jet engine exhaust at the back. Don’t think these guys are safe, they’re radiation warning signs all over.  Many of the openings and fittings are sealed off.  Even the giant weld seams on the reactor have been recently coated with a white colored material.

Nuclear powered jet engines and the lead-lined train that pulled them.

Some people would say that only an evil scientist would come up with such a thing. Maybe they’re right? General Electric spent one billion taxpayer dollars on the project, before it was canceled by President Kennedy in 1961. And that’s 1950s dollars, whew!

There are several informational plaques that give the visitor more understandable, and more interesting, info than what I found on the internet. Like “Operation Wiener Roast”. They actually burned a nuclear turbine engine to see if dangerous levels of radiation would be spread if a nuclear powered aircraft crashed.

Operation Wiener Roast

Testing of the reactor turbine was successful, but an actual aircraft was never developed. The program was conducted in Idaho, in Test Area North, of what is now called the INL.  The project was managed by the U.S. Air Force and the Atomic Energy Commission.  There’s lots more information on the signs, you need to go there to look for yourself.

One things for sure, this archeological find proves that the U.S. government spent taxpayer dollars on some really far out stuff in the 1950s.

Radiation signs next to jet engines.

Lead-lined train in the Arco desert in Eastern Idaho. Photo by Alexander Hutchins.

GHOSTLY NUKE TRAIN ROLLIN’ ‘CROSS IDAHO DESERT

Fukushima, U.S.

GE getting involved in Fukushima

Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric, met with Tokyo Electric chairman Katsumata Tsunehisa on Sunday.

TEPCo officials said GE’s Immelt offered ‘maximum’ support for dealing with the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which GE designed.

According to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, there are 23 nuclear plants in the United States that are similar in design as Fukushima Daiichi.

Immelt will meet with the Japanese Economy Minister on Monday.  Under Japanese regulations, if the design of the plant is proven faulty then GE can be sued.

Immelt has also been pushing for taxpayer supported nuclear plant development in the U.S.  The Guardian newspaper recently reminded people that Immelt once said that investors are not willing to take on the risks of nuclear power, and that those risks should be handled by the government (taxpayers).  In other words, capitalist investors know nuclear power is a bad bet.

According to former Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, General Electric paid no U.S. taxes in 2010. He also wants Jeffery Immelt to resign from President Barack Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

 

International, U.S.

3 day search ended, only 78 bodies found

After three days of intense searching by about 20,000 U.S. and Japanese military personnel, only 78 bodies were found.

It was hoped the low tide would reveal more of the missing.

At this point, Japanese national police say there is more than 15,000 people missing. And that is based on reports from living relatives. Police say that the actual number is much higher, because entire families were washed away in the March 11 tsunami, leaving no one to report them missing. Also, documentation of residents in the hardest hit prefectures, were also washed away.

The death toll, so far, going by numbers presented at the prefectural level, is more than 10,000. Again, that is expected to go up as bodies are found.

International, U.S.

Mexican Drug War front for War on Human Rights Activists

According to Human Rights groups, and the United Nations, thousands of people in Mexico have been disappeared since the Drug War began, and the Mexican government is one of the suspects.

Those people being disappeared are not drug dealers, or drug runners, but human rights activists, oil workers, journalists and even migrant workers.  The traditional ‘right’ leaning Mexican government has always viewed human rights activists as left wing commies, and more of a threat than illegal drug dealers.

To put the current situation in perspective, Mexico’s own National Commission on Human Rights, documented the disappearance of 532 people (disappeared by the government) thought to be rights activist in the 1960s-1970s (during the Cold War).  Since 2006 more than 3,000 people have been disappeared.

In 2006, right wing President Felipe Calderón, went on the war path, officially against the drug lords. Is it a coincidence that the Mexican government’s so called war on drugs is actually killing and disappearing civilians?

The facts are that since the Mexican Drugs War began, the people being targeted are civilians, including U.S. citizens.  Far more civilians have been killed than drug dealers. Keep in mind these killings are not from aerial bombing, but from shootings and beatings, and other means, by police, soldiers and drug gangs.  That means the killers had to specifically target the victims.

To put it in perspective: In all of Afghanistan, in 2010, there were 2,421 civilian deaths (Congressional Research Service). In just one Mexican city, Ciudad Juarez, there were 3,111 civilian deaths. That’s one Mexican city compared to all of Afghanistan.

Total deaths in the Drugs War, according to Mexico’s Federal Attorney General’s office, just for 2010, is 12,456 people by the end of November.  And that does not count people disappeared.

In the city of Saltillo, there are 118 documented cases of disappearances since 2007.  The government security forces are believed to be involved in at least 25 of those.  Human Rights Watch documented 12 cases of disappearances in the state of Nuevo León, in which government military personnel and police are believed to be involved.

Hypocritically the Mexican government signed the UN International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, in 2008.  To be fair, not all disappearances are linked to the Mexican government, but it sure is strange that there should be skyrocketing numbers of civilian killed and disappeared, since the Drugs War started in 2006.  Are both the Mexican military and police, and the drug gangs, that bad at finding their targets?

International, U.S.

Libyan Rebels say they Already are being trained by the United States

Al Jazeera says rebels told them they are being trained at a secret base in eastern Libya (by the way that’s where most of the oil fields are).

The al Jazeera reporter stated that the rebels where being trained how to use weapons: “He said these were state-of-the-art, heat-seeking rockets and that they needed to be trained on how to use them, which was one of the things the American and Egyptian special forces were there to do.”-correspondent Laurence Lee

The reporter went on to question calls for arming and training the rebels by coalition forces, “…when in fact they [rebels] are already being armed covertly.”

According to the report, the Libyan rebels say they are getting training and equipment from Egypt and the United States. This is not the first time the rebels have made such claims. 

International, U.S.

More Proof we’re NOT protecting civilians, not even the REBELS, in Libya. Obama either a Fool or a bold faced lier

UN Security Council Resolution 1973, supposedly is about protecting Libyan civilians, yet there are many claims that civilians have been attacked by the UN mandated NATO led coalition forces. Even the Christian Vatican says civilians are being bombed.

Now the Libyan rebels say coalition aircraft have bombed them!

Rebels are reporting several different attacks on their forces, by NATO. In one attack a convoy of vehicles were bombed, in another rebel positions in an oil town was bombed. At least 13 rebels were killed.

NATO says they’re investigating, and implied that the rebels shot at their aircraft first.

This is so messed up. President Barack Obama insists this is about protecting civilians, which has proven false, or impossible to do. Obama has stated, even before the UN resolution, that he wanted Gaddafi out, so far that’s a failure. Obama said the U.S. would be out in a mater of “…days, not weeks!”, it took at least a week and a half to “officially” turn Operation Odyssey Dawn over to NATO (by the way the U.S. still controls NATO, so did we really give up control?).

I have presented many examples, in other postings, that this is all about oil for Europe, not promoting democracy. It’s so clear that the UN mandated coalition forces have no clear goal.  How could the Commander in Chief of U.S. forces (that’s Obama for those who don’t know) rush into such a tar pit?  Obama is either a fool, or a bold faced lier. (Given his INEXPERIENCE, I think he just a fool)

 

 

International, Opinion, U.S.

Obama willing to sell out U.S. troops to South Korean Command, sign of declining U.S. Empire

In an unprecedented move, the United States has agreed, in principal, to put U.S. forces under the direct command of South Korea. Details are still being worked out.

“It is an unprecedented measure since the U.S. military is characteristically reluctant to place troops under the command of other countries.”–The Chosun Ilbo, Korean newspaper

Officially the move is to help South Korea in case of attack by North Korea. But isn’t that why our troops are there to begin with? Why do they have to be placed under direct control of the South Koreans?  Never in United States history has another country controlled our military forces! Even the Russians didn’t do that after the fall of the Soviet Union.  Is it another sign of the decline of the U.S. Empire?