Monday, May 23, 2011

Week 12: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week

Post by Sunday at midnight.

1. Mark Whitaker

2. Trends of U.S. inequality and marriage bodes poorly despite Friedman's predictions that we discuss this week

3. Friedman is very optimistic in his scenarios for the whole 21st century about continued U.S. dominance, particularly against Russia and China. HOWEVER, there are some cultural reproduction issues in the USA that could pull the USA apart: massive social reproduction of inequality and poverty for children; many children without the social, emotional, and financial stability of two parents in the USA; and ethnic inequalities tensions with different marriage rates; and women particularly without financial standing outside of marriage, despite gaining independence. Just a few of the trends of the USA that bode poorly I think, and which puts Friedman's more optimistic U.S. dominance scenario in question.

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05-22-2011 15:03
Schwarzenegger just part of story of marriage woes

By Jay Ambrose

...It's now Arnold Schwarzenegger's media moment, something he earned by extra friendliness with household help, having a love child and finally telling Maria Shriver, his wife, about it. She has naturally enough separated from him, and some may think this one more message about an institution in deep trouble, though it is far from the heart of that story.

No, the Schwarzenegger tale mostly symbolizes how ambitious, driven, ego-centered men seem especially given to wandering off the ranch, the examples running the political gamut from John F. Kennedy in the 1960s to Newt Gingrich more recently.

These particular men, however, are upper middle class ― well, upper, upper, upper middle class. It's mostly poorer Americans with scant education who are most abandoning marriage, often not even giving it a whirl, as you can learn from Kay S. Hymowitz, a Manhattan Institute scholar and author of several books and some online writings I recently encountered.

She's full of reason, understanding and facts, and tells us among other things that all the news gab about the marital mayhem of celebrities can be very misleading.

Most educated, better-off folks are in fact growing more in love with marriage. When you catch a story such as a recent one saying three percent more married-couple families are celebrating 10th wedding anniversaries than in the 1980s, you can bet it's the most advantaged taking more advantage of this absolutely crucial institution.

Go back to the 1960s, and we were a marrying, stay-together nation. But then came the birth control pill, something called the sexual revolution and more widely respected rights and opportunities for women. Says Hymowitz, all of this caused many women to reevaluate the old idea that first comes love, marriage, then the baby carriage.

Divorce became a big deal with us, and still is, despite some decline over the past two decades. Very, very scary on top of that is that something more than a third of children are now born out of wedlock, if only a tiny percentage of them to college educated women. They've figured something important out. Marriage matters to children.

They get it that kids with two parents earning money are going to have more money coming in. They get it that having two married-couple parents means more training for the children, more guidance by example toward the kind of life that works best for families, more attention to academics. Those who don't get it are people with the least education ― often less than high school. Here is what single-parent homes give us on average: still no education to speak of in the next generation, still more poverty, still more single-parent moms.

Hymowitz skillfully takes on the people who argue differently, saying that it's the market economy or inadequate social programs that cause these difficulties or that poor women don't marry because there is no one out there for them, no acceptable male. She grants the market is increasingly less friendly to unskilled labor, but notes that marriage tends to engender education and skills in children.

She observes, too, that the women who don't marry often have live-in boyfriends. They have in fact located men they find suitable to have in the home. Hymowitz agrees that marriage may not be a panacea for poverty, but argues something bigger: It is the "sine qua non," that without which you get none of the rest of what it takes to climb out of it.

The percentages of unwed mothers among poor whites, blacks and some other minority groups are over half, and if we are going to fix what ails us, we have to fix this. I am dubious about the role of politics, though some good examples and good preaching might help.

I do believe that cultural values count, as opposed to the politically correct social scientists, some of whom were saying in one news account that talking about wrong values amounts to blaming the victims. No, it's blaming the culture, including the social scientists who help form it. We need a new revolution, and wise thinkers like Hymowitz can help us get there.


---
http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2011/05/160_87418.html


[2]

1. Mark Whitaker

2. Fukushima is 50 Chernobyl's in one Estimate: Expect Huge Radioactive Death Around the World Unseen in Human Hisory Very Soon

3. Yes, here's some scenarios based on backcasting what happened with only 1/50th of the nuclear release. How anyone can support nuclear power with all the clean options we have is just a sign that the psychopathic and ignorant lead the deluded in our increasingly globalized society as long as both make money in the short term. Futures studies however is about the long term. Nuclear entirely has to be entirely removed. All nuclear plants require shutting down if this apocalyptic scenario is a potential permanent human relic of any disaster.

--------------------------------


Fukushima: How Many Chernobyls Is It?

Dr Scampa’s Lethal Doses Count Increases Dramatically

by Bob Nichols

(San Francisco) – The world’s second big nuclear disaster occurred at Chernobyl Reactor No. 4 in the Ukraine on Apr 26, 1986. Simply tagged as “Chernobyl,” it is what the next big and well known nuke disaster, after the American Three Mile Island, on March 28, 1979 came to be called. “Chernobyl” ejected 30% of one 192-ton, three-month old reactor core. That’s 57.6 radioactive tons thrown into the air by fire and explosions.

The tiny radioactive and burning smoke particles have traveled around the world many times since 1979, killing an estimated one million people to date from radiation caused illnesses and cancers. This is according to Editor Dr Janette Sherman’s exhaustive and widely acclaimed book on 5,000 Chernobyl scientific papers recently published by the New York Academy of Sciences [1].

Fukushima Daiichi Equals 50 Plus Chernobyls

As Dr. Michio Kaku, a world renowned CUNY theoretical physicist pointed out on CNN March 18, 2011, Chernobyl involved one reactor and only 57.6 Tons of the reactor core went into the atmosphere. In dramatic contrast, the Fukushima Daiichi disaster immediately involved six reactors and IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency, a UN Agency) documented 2,800 Tons of highly radioactive old reactor cores.

Simple division tells us there are at least 48.6 Chernobyls in the burning old reactor cores pumping fiery isotopes into the Earth’s atmosphere. It is no stretch to say Fukushima Daiichi’s six reactors and the dry holding pools for old reactor cores are equal to more than 50 Chernobyl disasters.

Further clarification is needed, of course, and it is being worked out now by independent physicists. Note that the lethality of radioactive reactor cores goes up the first 250,000 years they are out of the reactor – not down.

Looking at the current Japanese meltdown as more than 50 Chernobyls is just the start. In addition, the fate of the four nearby reactors at Fukushima Daini is as yet unknown by the outside world. Working at the nearby reactors, only 10 km (6 miles away) is a quick, painful death sentence. They are inside the mandatory evacuation zone.

This much is known. All radioactive exposures are cumulative for each human, animal and plant. What’s more, mutated genetic codes are passed on to offspring forever. This means all Japanese and all Northern Hemisphere inhabitants are suffering internal radioactive contamination from Fukushima Daiichi reactors already.

Fukushima Equals 3,000 Billion Lethal Doses

Dr Paolo Scampa, a widely know EU Physicist, single handedly popularized the easily understood Lethal Doses concept. “Lethal Doses” is a world wide, well understood idea that strips Physics bare and offers a brilliant, understandable explanation for all the physics gobbledygook Intelligence agencies and their respective governments use to disguise the brutal truths of the Fukushima Daiichi Disaster.

Three thousand billion (3,000,000,000,000) Lethal Doses of Radiation means there are 429 Lethal Doses chasing each and every one of us on the planet, to put it in a nutshell. This is up from about 70 Billion Lethal Doses March 23, 2011. It is getting worse everyday without any intervention by the US and the other nuclear powers.

VeteransToday calls on the world’s nuclear powers to intervene sooner rather than later. It is up to the world’s only remaining Super Power, the United States, to get the Japan Reactor Disaster Intervention meeting officially underway.

The Fukushima Kill

The Fukushima Kill, already underway world wide, will certainly dwarf that of Chernobyl. All US Super Power President Obama’s delay does is increase the numbers of The Kill. That is a clear Choice. We call on President Obama to re-visit that Choice.

Further, the Genetic and DNA changing aspects of the radioactivity now in the air, spreading worldwide within a year, will spawn a grotesque new assortment of radiation-degraded mutants; both human and of other life forms.

Many of these creatures in the animal world will not survive long outside the womb, if carried to term. What’s more, future Human Genetic Mutants of ever-lower intelligence and greater, more grotesque physical deformities are the genetic legacy of Humanity forevermore. That is the new starting point for any rational and reality-based national or foreign policy.

What We Know Now about Fukushima

Here is what is known more than 75 days after six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Reactor Plant started a disastrous and lethal nuclear meltdown on March 11, 2011.

- March 11, 14:46, a One Million Kiloton Earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter Scale hammered Japan off-shore near the six Japanese reactors. The reactors attempted to shut down automatically when electronic sensors detected the earthquake. The huge earthquake dropped the reactors three feet, moved Japan 8 inches to the West and altered the tilt of the Axis of planet Earth.

- March 11, about 15:30, the giant Earthquake caused a tsunami up to 30 meters (98.4 Ft) high washed away all the fuel tanks for the reactors Emergency Generators and all the reactors’ outside electrical feeds. This was the Death Blow to the reactors.

The six Fukushima Daiichi reactors were dead in the water and their fate sealed. Without an external source of electricity for the water pumps and hot reactors, they are just so much radioactive scrap iron – good for nothing. The internal temperature of the reactors started climbing immediately.

- March 11, about 18:00, only two and a half hours later, multiple reactor cores started melting down as the reactors internal temperatures skyrocketed to the melting point of uranium and beyond – a measured 1,718 Deg C (3,124.4 Deg F) past the melting point.

Uranium melts at 1,132.2 Deg C (2,069.9 Deg F.) The internal reactor temperatures reached at least 2,850 Deg C, (5,162 Deg F.) The millions of 1 mm Uranium fuel pellets in the reactors and in the core pools had no defense at all without the powerful water pumps and billions of gallons of cooling water against those temperatures.

The Uranium pellets simply melted forming a white hot lava-like radioactive uranium isotope blob that was and probably still is super heated by the power of the uranium atom itself. The highly radioactive blob then burned through the graphite seals of the General Electric Mark 1 Reactor Control Rods at the bottom of the American submarine based reactor design of US Navy Admiral Hyman Rickover, now deceased.

General Electric copied the US Government financed Navy nuclear reactor design for many commercial nuclear reactors. The Radioactive Blobs trickled out of hundreds of control rod holes instead of melting together to form a single giant, highly radioactive, burning lava blob like that of Chernobyl.

The Solution, Then and Now, has Changed

World famous theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku caught the world’s attention on a March 18, 2011 CNN broadcast when he suggested the Prime Minister of Japan immediately choose the “Chernobyl Option” for the Fukushima Daiichi General Electric reactors.

Kaku said the Japanese PM should order the Japanese Air Self Defense Force to bomb the reactors into submission with boron, sand, water and concrete like the Red Army did to kill the out-of-control Chernobyl reactor on orders of USSR President Gorbachev. Boron absorbs neutrons, the radioactive heart of the reactors.

The time for Dr. Kaku’s “Chernobyl Option” has passed. Multiple explosions destroyed the reactors and the swimming pools holding old reactor cores weeks ago. Hundreds to thousands of tons of burning highly radioactive reactor cores are scattered all over the Fukushima Daiichi site. The reactors are releasing as much as a Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power Company) measured 10 Quintillion (10,000 Trillion Bq) radioactive counts per second of deadly radioactive smoke particles into the Earth’s atmosphere.

The invisible, killing Radioactive Smoke is already all over the Northern Hemisphere and everyone in it – each and every one – is radiologically contaminated. The scope of Dr. Kaku’s once brilliant former solution is unfortunately, now too small and ineffective.

Generally speaking, most Radiation cannot escape into the atmosphere if it is covered by water. Honshu, Japan is an island and the Pacific Ocean is conveniently located nearby.

Subsidence charges from multiple nuclear weapons buried by drilling rigs 500 ft (152.4 meters) below and inland of the string of six reactors must be engineered to slide the reactors into the sea. [<--- This is an even more insane suggestion.] This method works best if there is igneous or volcanic rock behind the subsidence charges, to “bounce” the blast and pressure wave from and “push” the trashed reactors area of the beachfront into the sea. [Into the sea? You mean into a water current that will distribute it even wider than it is? If this author is typical, humans in my opinion have revealed their dominating stupidity and inability to handle such technologies once more. Nuclear power should be consigned to history. Nuclear power combined with human hubris and stupidity in the drivers seat of this technology is a self-destructive combination.]

Specially equipped submarines can then pick up the pieces of reactor cores from under water. [Huh? He thinks that the radioactive cores can be 'picked up' somewhere once a nuclear blast scatters them to the air and sinks the area into the sea? He thinks they will merely be lying on the surface underwater? Huge untested assumptions about a 'good nuclear' scenario.] The surface of the ocean blocks the escape of radiation. [No, it carries it worldwide through a deadly radioactive sea!] The submarines must work fast to limit killing more of the Earth’s Oceans. [That's the scenario, they 'work fast' eh? Lots of assumptions that they can do this job and pick up strange pieces of metal full buried or half buried by a nuclear blast and melted to the rock!]

Veterans Today calls on President Obama to authorize the disposal of the six reactors at sea and the collection of the deadly radioactive metals with submarines. We conclude there are no other options left. [If you conclude there are 'no options' except one, then you reveal that you really are dangerous.]

The “Do Nothing Option”

The “Do Nothing Option” allows the deaths and maiming of many millions of people to rapidly proceed. Doing nothing, by default, allows the Fukushima Kill to ruthlessly continue unabated. Doing nothing is also not acceptable from a practical standpoint; because, Japan does not own the nuclear weapons to use themselves.

Nuke the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi right into the sea, Mr. President. [Crazy idea.]

---
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/05/28/fukushima-how-many-chernobyls-is-it/


[My scenario: the whole area requires months and months of people dropping boron and other things on the area to complete bury it in a mountain of concrete and boron. Sluices of boron sand should be delivered to specific spots, and the radioactive heat will melt it into stable glass, sealing in much of the radioactivity as Chernobyl did. Then, the whole area should at least have a large tent erected over it, then, that tent covered with concrete. This tent would be many square kilometers wide. It will be the "new Pyramids". It has to be covered and entombed and without pushing more of it into the sea that will only wash ashore in the next tsunami. Radioactive glass is perhaps the best option, covered in a mountain of boron. There's 50 Chernobyls there, so thinking about small Chernobyl sized solutions has past.]

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Week 11: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week

Post by Sunday at midnight.


NOTE TO CLASS:

On Thursday, we finished Garreau and the "GRINs" technological futures/scenarios. If you were absent you missed some interesting videos. Here's another:

Amputee Patrick demonstrates his new bionic hand
May 2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13378036

"Last year, Patrick, a 24-year-old Austrian, decided to have his dysfunctional hand amputated and replaced with a bionic hand. He lost the use of his left hand after being electrocuted at work.

Here he demonstrates the extra movement his new bionic hand has given him, opening a bottle and tying his shoelaces, and tests a prototype hand which will give him additional wrist movement."


'Thought-controlled' wheelchair unveiled
February 2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12458553

"Scientists in Switzerland have devised a prototype "thought-controlled" wheelchair. The chair can be guided by brain signals which are detected by a cap worn by the user and interpreted by a computer. Here, the researchers behind it discuss and demonstrate the wheelchair at their facilities at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. Details of the work have been presented to the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington DC."


Brain orchestra's world premiere (2009)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8020904.stm

"Musicians use their brain waves to play computer-generated notes while led by an 'emotional conductor' in Prague. The graphs of those brain waves are projected onto one of two large screens above the orchestra. The performers launch sounds or affect their frequencies using EEG systems that measure their brain activity. Two of the performers were given a task to watch a screen in front of them, with flashing rows and columns of letters, and told to look for a particular letter. When they see it, 300 thousandths of a second later a signal appears in the EEG, causing a note to play."



The blind rock climber who sees with his tongue
May 2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13358608

"Erik Weihenmayer went blind when he was 13 years old but new technology enables him to see with his tongue. The BrainPort device gives him a sense of space and, together with a friend nearby, helps him scale Utah's formidable Castleton Rock."


Project to build computer model of human brain takes off


London, May 16, 2011

A team of scientists has assembled in Switzerland and Germany to attempt the unthinkable -- building a computer model of human brain. It could potentially open the way to cures for various diseases such as Parkinson's.

Called the Human Brain Project, but dubbed 'Team Frankenstein', scientists claim it could also lead to intelligent robots and supercomputers which would dwarf those currently in existence.

Henry Markram, a neuroscientist at the École Polytechnique Fédérale in Lausanne, Switzerland, has assembled a team of nine top European scientists for the research effort.

"This is one of the three grand challenges for humanity. We need to understand earth, space and the brain. We need to understand what makes us human," Markram said, reports the Daily Mail.

Scientists and researchers on the Brain Project believe that if they secure the funding, they will be able to replicate mankind's most vital organ in 12 years.

The applications for it if successful are enormous; drug companies for instance would be able to dramatically shorten testing times by bypassing humans to test new medicaments on the computer model.

Supercomputers at the Jülich Research Center near Cologne, Germany, are earmarked to play a vital role in the research which Makram says will involve ‘a tsunami of data’.

Jülich neuroscientist Katrin Amunts has begun work on a detailed atlas of the brain which involved slicing one into 8,000 parts which were then digitalized with a scanner.

Makram added: ‘It is not impossible to build a human brain. We can do it in just over 10 years.

‘This will, when successful, help two billion people annually who suffer from some type of brain impairment.’

---
http://www.prokerala.com/news/articles/a222032.html


Meanwhile, billions of people starve in the same world. Garreau said mind-machine interfaces were "military experimental" in 2004 at DARPA. Now there are market applications and artistic applications from 2009 to 2011 expanding everywhere.


Next week, we

a. discuss some geopolitical trends of powerful countries and
b. discuss some powerful non-democratic trends in the early 21st century.

Look in the syllabus at the following books.

1. Friedman (digital), read the China and U.S. chapters.
2. Engdahl (digital), skim
3. Engdahl (printed packet), skim
4. Klein (digital), Just read the first chapter.

Friedman concentrates on probable trends and his futurist scenarios of who will dominate the 21st century.

The other books document important trends that will assuredly have an effect on geopolitical power in the 21st century.

I plan to catch up next week on our blog coverage as well. I had your extra credit mid-terms in class today. If you didn't get them, I will bring them next week as well.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Week 10: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week

Post by Sunday at midnight.

This is the link to the Five Regions Flash animation:
http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/exhibits/five_regions/index.shtml

The best introduction for next week's continuing discussion of the GRIN technological trends and scenarios about them are:

1. the short history of transhumanism (digital packet)
2. the Chapters in the Garreau book, Radical Evolution (2005). (printed packet)

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Week 9: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week

Post by Sunday at midnight.

1. Mark Whitaker

2. Radiation on the North American Pacific West Coast and East U.S. Are Both High from Fukushima Fallout; both Canadian government and USA goverment trying to stop local people from testing and rejecting ongoing testing for Fukushima, respectively

3. Some reports that many would like to ignore, though these trends are inexorably bad for the complete territory of the U.S. and Canada


------------

[1]

Vancouver seaweed almost 400% above international limit for iodine-131 in food
by March 28 — Levels increasing

Amount of radiation in Vancouver rainwater decreasing – scientist, Vancouver Sun, April 5, 2011 at 7:17 pm EDT:

… Meanwhile, seaweed samples were still showing increasing iodine-131 as of March 28, according to data provided by [Krzystof Starosta, a nuclear chemist and physicist and associate professor at Simon Fraser University].

In samples of dehydrated seaweed taken on March 15 near the North Vancouver SeaBus terminal, the count was zero; on March 22 it was 310 Bq per kilogram; and by March 28 it was 380 Bq/kg. …

Read the report here.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Amount+radiation+Vancouver+rainwater+decreasing+scientist/4562265/story.html#ixzz1IgoN8H1b

---
http://enenews.com/vancouver-seaweed-almost-400-above-international-standard-for-iodine-131-in-food-by-march-28-levels-increasing


[2]

Nuclear professor “surprised” by radioactive seaweed south of Seattle — “I guess I was assuming it wouldn’t reach this far, but it did”

Radioactive Seaweed Detected In Puget Sound, But Not Harmful [sic], KIRO 7 Eyewitness News, April 11, 2011:

… KIRO 7 obtained samples of seaweed from Budd Inlet near Olympia two weeks ago. Professor Kris Starosta [a nuclear scientist] at Simon Fraser University confirmed the presence of radioactive iodine Monday.

“We have seen iodine 131 in the sample you sent us,” he said. “I think it’s pretty clear by now this must be iodine 131 from releases from Fukushima.” …

“I think it is surprising,” Starosta said. “I guess I was assuming it wouln’t [sic] reach this far, but it did.” …

Starosta said that if you were to eat 2 pounds of dried seaweed with the highest levels of radiation he and his team had detected, it would be the equivalent of getting one dental X-ray. [VERY DIFFERENT AND THIS IS A LIE; because consumption of radionuclides cannot be compared to 'getting an x-ray' or 'commercial airline flight.']

Read the report here.

Radio interview with Prof. Starosta here.

Read more:

* By March 21, 5 nuclear isotopes from Fukushima detected in Seattle: Iodine-131, iodine-132, tellurium-132, cesium-134 and cesium-137
* People in areas along Canada’s Pacific coast want to gather seaweed but don’t know if it’s safe
* Radioactive seaweed found in Vancouver, CA — “As of now, the levels we’re seeing are not harmful”: Nuclear physicist
* Former DOE official criticizes UC Berkeley professor for comparing ingestion of radioactive iodine to air travel
* Maryland senior scientist: “Very surprised” over radioactive iodine-131 findings — “A fat red bar” on graph never seen before

---
http://enenews.com/nuclear-friendly-professor-surprised-radioactive-seaweed-south-seattle-guess-assuming-wouldnt-reach


[3]

Maryland senior scientist: “Very surprised” over radioactive iodine-131 findings — “A fat red bar” on graph never seen before

On the lookout for radiation in Maryland, Baltimore Sun, April 4, 2011:

[Emphasis Added]

… But on March 23, when the signature of radioactive iodine 131 turned up in an air filter tested in one of the state health lab’s gamma-ray counters, Abudureheman Abulimiti, a senior scientist in the [Maryland health department] lab, wasn’t ready to believe it. [even though Chernobyl fallout hit the East U.S. and raised birth mortality in 1986 for a few months]


Although the radiation lab has been monitoring the state’s air and water for decades, this was the first time its current employees — too new to recall the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986 — had seen a radioactive byproduct from a reactor accident.

“I was very surprised,” said Abulimiti, who’s been there about seven years. “I immediately got in contact with … my supervisor. Something was going on.” …

The display is a vertical bar graph, and on March 23, Abulimiti spotted a fat red bar toward the left side of the graph where he had never seen one before. Its energy level identified it as iodine 131. It was unmistakable. …

Read the Baltimore Sun report here.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/bs-md-radiation-testing-20110404,0,5218789.story

Read more:

* Enraged nuclear expert: “I’m personally furious at the government for this misleading information” that downplays ingesting milk with iodine-131
* Nuclear professor “surprised” by radioactive seaweed south of Seattle — “I guess I was assuming it wouldn’t reach this far, but it did”
* Two senior Japanese officials warn there is still a real risk of catastrophic disaster at Fukushima
* Scientist: Radiation in food going to be a nationwide problem in US — Not just limited to one region (VIDEO)
* EPA: Radioactive isotope levels are increasing in US — “These types of findings are to be expected in the coming days”

---
http://enenews.com/maryland-senior-scientist-very-surprised-over-radioactive-iodine-131-findings-a-fat-red-bar-on-graph-never-seen-before

[4]

Chernobyl coverup in Canada revealed by local BC official [so] “My hair stood straight up” when told not to worry about radiation from Fukushima [now]

No-drink order in Old Massett, following radiation increase, Queen Charlotte Islands Observer, April 8, 2011:
http://www.qciobserver.com/Article.aspx?Id=4908

[Emphasis Added]

… [Old Massett, British Columbia acting band manager John Disney] said his suspicions around adequate government testing started 25 years ago, after the nuclear meltdown in Chernobyl, Ukraine.

He’d been out on his fishing boat and heard the Coast Guard over the radio telling lighthouse operators to disconnect their rainwater systems. [though not a warning to the public who drink the same water]

When he tried to find out why, the local, provincial and federal health authorities told him not to worry, the coast guard were just being overcautious.

He asked whether they were testing and was assured they were. But he decided to do his own investigation and took samples from his Nadu Road rain catchment system to a private lab. They found two types of radiation were at the danger level. He drained his 4,000 gallon tank [in 1986].

Fast forward to two weeks ago, post-tsunami in Japan, he said, when he was told not to worry about potential radiation in the rainwater here. “My hair stood straight up,” he said. …

Read the report here.

---
http://enenews.com/local-official-bc-canada-reveals-chernobyl-coverup-hair-stood-straight-when-told-worry-about-radiation-fukushima

See also:

Canada: Local official advising residents not to drink rainwater after tests find increasing radioactivity — Under pressure from Gov’t to stop testing [and EPA of USA to stop testing for Fukushima as well]

Vancouver, Canada radiation tests show iodine-131 in rainwater at almost 100 times above US drinking water limit


[5]

Canada: Local official advising residents not to drink rainwater after tests find increasing radioactivity — Under pressure from Gov’t to stop testing
April 8th, 2011 at 12:41 PM


Old Massett Posts Rainwater Advisory, CFNR, April 7, 2011:

The Acting Band Manager for Old Massett has advised area residents not to drink rainwater because of concern about radiation from Japan.

John Disney says the village has been conducting its own tests for radiation in water sources since late March.

While the March 24th sample showed only background radiation levels, later tests showed increased levels of iodine 131 prompting the advisory. …

He says he has experienced pressure from government authorities to stop the testing, but he says he can’t do that when the health of the community is at stake.

Disney adds that many elders in the community like to make their tea with rainwater and others have rainwater systems that supply their homes. …

Read the report here.
http://www.classicrockcfnr.ca/index.php/news/detail/old-massett-posts-rainwater-advisory/

---
http://enenews.com/canada-local-official-advising-residents-not-to-drink-rainwater-after-tests-find-increasing-radioactivity-govt-pressuring-him-to-stop-testing


[6]

EPA: Radioactive isotope levels are increasing in US — “These types of findings are to be expected in the coming days”
March 28th, 2011 at 04:18 PM

from an strangely misleading titled article:
EPA Monitoring Continues to Confirm That No Radiation Levels of Concern Have Reached the United States, EPA, March 28, 2011:

During detailed filter analyses from 12 RadNet air monitor locations across the nation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identified trace amounts of radioactive isotopes consistent with the Japanese nuclear incident. Some of the filter results show levels slightly higher than those found by EPA monitors last week and a Department of Energy monitor the week before. These types of findings are to be expected in the coming days and are still far below levels of public health concern. [so trusting of governments now are we?]

EPA’s samples were captured by monitors in Alaska, Alabama, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands and Washington state over the past week and sent to EPA scientists for detailed laboratory analysis. [though EPA additionally said that their ongoing testing machinery was, sorry, 'offline/broken' and thus would have missed radiation. Or do they have the data and refuse to reveal it?]


---
http://enenews.com/epa-radioactive-isotope-levels-are-increasing-these-types-of-findings-are-to-be-expected-in-the-coming-days


[7]

Enraged nuclear expert: “I’m personally furious at the government for this misleading information” that downplays ingesting milk with iodine-131
April 5th, 2011 at 01:47 PM

Threat posed by radioactive milk tough to measure, California Watch, April 5, 2011:

[Emphasis Added]

“Radiation is all around us in our daily lives, and these findings are a miniscule amount compared to what people experience every day,” wrote Patricia Hansen, a Food and Drug Administration scientist, in response to the milk findings. “For example, a person would be exposed to low levels of radiation on a round-trip cross-country flight, watching television, and even from construction materials.”

… A coalition of scientists and environmentalists insisted ingesting radiation is not the same as background exposures from airplane flights.

“The FDA spokesperson should have informed the public that radioiodine provides a unique form of exposure in that it concentrates rapidly in dairy products and in the human thyroid,” wrote Robert Alvarez, a former senior policy adviser to President Clinton’s U.S. Secretary of Energy. …

It was this concern that enraged Michael Mariotte, the executive director of Nuclear Information and Resource Service, when the federal government released its statement downplaying the milk situation.

“No mother should ever have to wonder if the milk she feeds her child might be harmful,” he wrote in a statement. “Having worked on nuclear issues for 25 years, I know the difference between internal exposures and background radiation. But lots of people don’t. As the father of an 11-month old daughter, I’m personally furious at the government for this misleading information.” …

Paul Carroll, a nuclear expert with Ploughshares Fund, a San-Francisco-based international nuclear security foundation, said… “any additional exposure to radiation will increase your risk of developing cancer.” …

Read the report here.
http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/threat-posed-radioactive-milk-tough-measure-9607

---
http://enenews.com/enraged-nuclear-expert-i%E2%80%99m-personally-furious-at-the-government-for-this-misleading-information-about-ingesting-radiation-from-milk


Vancouver seaweed almost 400% above international limit for iodine-131 in food… by March 28 — Levels increasing


[8]

Former DOE official criticizes UC Berkeley professor for comparing ingestion of radioactive iodine to air travel

April 6th, 2011 at 08:19 PM


Universities come through in monitoring for radiation, Seattle Times, April 5, 2011:

[Kai Vetter, UC Berkeley professor of nuclear engineering] and his colleagues try to put the health risks in [FALSE AND INTENTIONALLY PUBLICLY MISLEADING] perspective by pairing their data with calculations of “effective doses.” For example, a person would have to drink 134 liters of the rainwater with the highest radiation levels to equal the average radiation exposure from flying cross-country. …

[Robert Alvarez, a former DOE deputy assistant secretary for national security] is critical of those kinds of comparisons, which are also offered by EPA and health agencies.

Isotopes like iodine-131 are not part of normal background radiation, and have unique properties that background radiation does not, like accumulating in the thyroid gland, he pointed out.

“The doses are extremely small, and so, too, are the risks,” he said. “But they liken it to everyday life and it’s not like everyday life. You shouldn’t have radioactive iodine even in tiny quantities finding its way into your milk supplies.” …

Read the report here.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2014693490_nukemonitors06m.html

---
http://enenews.com/former-doe-official-criticizes-uc-berkeley-professor-comparing-ingestion-radioactive-iodine-air-travel

[9]


Should Canada be concerned about radiation from Fukushima? Doctors, local officials say yes
April 8th, 2011 at 04:19 PM


Member of Canada’s legislative assembly says “I’d be very hesitant in saying everything is safe” – April 8th, 2011 at 01:17 PM

Canada: Local official advising residents not to drink rainwater after tests find increasing radioactivity — Under pressure from Gov’t to stop testing – April 8th, 2011 at 12:41 PM

Vancouver radiation tests show iodine-131 in rainwater at almost 100 times above US drinking water limit – April 8th, 2011 at 08:20 AM

Vancouver seaweed almost 400% above international limit for iodine-131 in food… by March 28 — Levels increasing – April 5th, 2011 at 09:34 PM

Canada suspends mobile radiation measurements around Vancouver, BC “until further notice” as radioactive cloud looms (VIDEO) – April 4th, 2011 at 06:46 AM

Physicians have “deep concern” about Canada being impacted by radioactive isotopes from Fukushima – April 1st, 2011 at 08:00 PM

Read more:

* Physicians have “deep concern” about Canada being impacted by radioactive isotopes from Fukushima
* Canadian political leader “shocked” by country’s Fukushima response — “Could not get answers”… Another accused of “fearmongering”
* Chernobyl coverup in Canada revealed by local BC official — “My hair stood straight up” when told not to worry about radiation from Fukushima
* Highly radioactive sewage found 30+ miles from Fukushima plant — Cesium levels up to 334,000 becquerels per kilogram
* Member of Canada’s legislative assembly says “I’d be very hesitant in saying everything is safe”

---
http://enenews.com/canada-be-concerned-about-radiation-fukushima-doctors-local-officials


[10]

ALERT: Fish near Fukushima at 4000% above Codex Alimentarius limit for radioactive I-131 — Yet US says eating it poses NO health risk

Japan Sets Radiation Standards for Fish, New York Times, April 5, 2011:

Japan’s government announced on Tuesday its first radiation safety standards for fish, hours after the operator of a crippled nuclear power plant said that seawater collected near the facility contained radiation several million times the legal limit.

The new standards were announced after a sample of kounago fish, or sand lance, that was caught last Friday off the coast halfway between the plant and Tokyo was found to have high levels of radioactive iodine 131.

The small fish had 4,080 becquerels of iodine 131 per kilogram (2.2 pounds). The new standard allows up to 2,000 becquerels [!!!] of iodine 131 per kilogram… [in other words, radioactive fish are now legal in Japan]

Read the report here.

Radioactivity Found in Fish as Tepco Purges Nuclear Plant, Bloomberg, April 5, 2011:

Radioactivity in fish exceeding [hastily invented!] health guidelines was detected for the first time off northern Japan as Tokyo Electric Power Co. dumped tainted water into the ocean to gain control of its crippled nuclear plant.

Cesium radioactivity in sand-lance caught south of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant was 526 becquerel per kilogram, compared with a health ministry standard of 500 becquerel, Makato Osodo, of the fishing policy division of the Ibaraki prefectural government, said in a telephone interview. …

Read the report here.

Food Contaminants, Hong Kong Centre for Food Safety, April 1, 2011:

[Emphasis Added]

What are the criteria adopted at present in testing the level of radioactive contamination in Japanese food products, and the measures to be adopted when some food products are found to have a level of radioactive contamination exceeding the normal standard?

CFS currently adopts the standards laid down by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which are international standards, in the Guidelines Levels for Radionuclides in Food following Accidental Nuclear Contamination in testing the radiation levels of food. Relevant radionuclides include iodine-131 (100 Bq/kg), caesium-134 and caesium-137 (1,000 Bq/kg), etc, which are most closely associated with health risks. [though Japan sets these far, far higher]

If a consignment of food is tested to have exceeded the contamination standard, the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department will immediately detain that consignment and arrange for disposal.

Read the report here.

U.S. Seeks to Reassure [placating people is cheaper than protecting them physically, managing their minds is much cheaper than protecting their bodies, INSTEAD OF TO TEST] on Contaminated Food, Wall Street Journal, April 5, 2011:

[Emphasis Added]

U.S. public-health officials sought Tuesday to reassure consumers about the safety of food in the U.S., including seafood, amid news that fish contaminated with unusually high levels of radioactive materials had been caught in waters 50 miles from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan.

No contaminated fish have turned up [THE U.S. DOES NOT TEST INCOMING SEAFOOD WITH ANY REGULARITY, ONLY SOME U.S STATES HAVE ANY ATTEMPT AT UNIVERSAL COVERAGE, LIKE ALABAMA FOR INSTANCE; UNDER BUSH AND INTO OBAMA THE TESTING OF FOREIGN PRODUCE HAS DRASTICALLY DECLINED WITH THE REDUCTION OF STAFF] in the U.S., or in U.S. waters, according to experts from the Food and Drug Administration, Environmental Protection Agency and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They expressed confidence that even a single fish sufficiently contaminated to pose a risk to human health would be detected by the U.S. monitoring system.

They also dismissed concerns that eating fish contaminated at the levels seen so far in Japan would pose such a risk. …

Read the report here.

Read more:

* Vancouver seaweed almost 400% above international limit for iodine-131 in food… by March 28 — Levels increasing
* Japan gov’t rewrites key Fukushima radiation information — This poses a problem says Kyoto U. nuclear professor
* People in areas along Canada’s Pacific coast want to gather seaweed but don’t know if it’s safe
* Radioactive iodine at 7.5 MILLION times legal limit in water around Fukushima — Cesium-137 at 1.1 MILLION times limit (VIDEO)
* Forecast shows Tokyo under radiation threat on Sunday March 20 (VIDEO)

---
http://enenews.com/fda-epa-and-cdc-say-no-health-risk-from-eating-contaminated-fish-caught-near-fukushima-even-though-4080-bqkg-of-i-131-found-in-fish-sample

[11]

Japan caught changing information about when they started intentionally venting off radiation from Fukushima

Gov’t task force rewrites Fukushima crisis log, Mainichi Daily News, April 7, 2011:

A government task force on the Fukushima nuclear crisis was found Wednesday to have rewritten the starting time of venting radioactive vapor from a troubled reactor the day after the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami without any clear explanation.

The change was made March 27 on the website of the prime minister’s office to “10:17 a.m.” from “2:30 p.m.”

Hironombu Unesaki, professor at the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute, said the change, without any adequate explanation to the public, poses a problem as information on venting is “important in connection with residents’ exposure to radiation.” …

Read the report here.

---
http://enenews.com/japan-govt-rewrites-key-fukushima-radiation-information-change-poses-problem-kyoto-nuclear-professor

Ergo: what I'm thinking is that nuclear power is a nest of lies and liars intent on managing your mind--which is much cheaper--than managing your health. They only care for money and for their own institutions legitimacy, so to make up information [or hide it] to keep that money and keep that legitimacy.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Week 8: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week

Post by Sunday at midnight.


Since we talked about possible and probable futures trends in soil erosion and its system effects, I wanted to balance out discussion with something more positive: a preferable futures vision that is being implemented around the world since the 1970s: permaculture:

Lawton's Guide To Permaculture Design and Strategy - Part 1



how to start one, the order of approach to turn a desert into a garden forest that expands itself as an ecological system of relationships

Greening the Desert
5:21



Featuring Jeff Lawton, Permaculture Research Institute of Australia



300 Year Old Food Forest in Vietnam
5:56



2,000 Year Old Food Forest in Morocco
4:37





Lawton's Guide To Permaculture Design and Strategy - Part 4 (9:50)
Discussing Zones of Permaculture for Work Maintenance Efficiency

OTHER PREFERABLE FUTURES VIEWS OF AGRICULTURE:

Silvopasture: 30 Years of Applying Research and Innovation
38:00



[See the cows in the forest? The general principle of agroforestry is multiple uses for all areas of land production to create a human-designed ecology. This example uses animals and forests, for 'silvopasture' ('Silvo' is connected to Latin, for forest] Produced by the Alabama Cooperative Extension System --- Silvopasture is an agroforestry practice that integrates livestock, forage production, and forestry on the same management unit. These systems are deliberately designed and managed to produce high-value timber products for the long term while also providing short-term annual economic benefit from a livestock component through management of forage or an annual crop.

[It balances out finance booms and busts as well, for more stable farm income:]Cattle and timber are affected by different market pressures. Silvopasture allows landowners to diversify their risk while realizing diverse income-generating possibilities from the same acreage.

This management system may not be for everyone. It is important that you take into consideration all of your goals for your property when making any land management decision.

But for many it is a way of life that allows them the flexibility to meet not only long and short term objectives, but also lifestyle and financial needs that are not addressed with traditional forest management systems.




1. Mark Whitaker

2. IMF prediction, PPP of China to overtake USA by 2016

3. Even if this is so China, has huge structural inequalities. However, in terms of the pull of international trade, China is already by 2011 the largest trader in the world, even if its economy is #2 compared to the USA. However, think of Smil's demographic trends analysis (a very aged Chinese society within 20 years), and massive inequalities that may pull China apart (says Friedman who we will read later).

A nice list of various US and global trends to discuss for their future(s) implications.

---------


America's Terminal Decline
By Stephen Lendman
4-29-11

What distinguished experts long knew (timetables aside), the IMF just recognized, saying China's economy will surpass America's in 2016. If so, it will signal an end to the "Age of America," and no wonder after decades of heedless profligacy. More on that below.

The IMF's 2011 World Economic Outlook shows China overtaking America in five years based on purchasing power parity (PPP) - a criterion for an appropriate exchange rate between currencies as measured by the cost of a representative basket of goods in one country v. another.

IMF's 2016 PPP GDP estimate:

-- China - $18,975.7 trillion

-- America - $18,807.5 trillion

In current dollar terms, America retains its lead, but it's slipping noticeably.

IMF's 2016 dollar GDP estimate:

-- America - $18,807.5 trillion

-- China - $11,220.2 trillion

Economic forecasts, of course, vary. Moreover, long-range ones combine extrapolated trends with reasoned judgments. However, as economist Alec Craincross (1911 - 1998) once observed:

"A trend is a trend is a trend. But the question is, will it bend? Will it alter its course through some unforeseen force and come to a premature end?"

Not China's for over three decades, "growing 17-fold in real (inflation-adjusted) terms since 1980," according to economist Mark Weisbrot. As a result, it's been the world's fastest growth engine, a pace it's maintained during the current global economic crisis in contrast to America in decline.

Economist Henry HK Liu mostly attributes China's success to its not freely convertible currency, its closed financial market, and its quasi public-private central bank used for economic growth, not bailouts and speculation. In his January 12, 2010 article titled, "China and a New World Economic Order," he discussed policy initiatives to keep influencing it positively, including:

-- avoiding a deregulated market economy;

-- prioritizing full employment and rising wages;

-- breaking free from dollar hegemony;

-- conducting trade based on mutual development; and

-- not using "green-tech investment" to stimulate growth.

On August 17, 2009, financial writer Ellen Brown's article headlined, "China's Miracle Economy: Have the Chinese Become the World's Greatest Capitalists?" saying:

China "seems to have decoupled from the rest of the world, preserving an 8% growth rate (now higher) while the rest of the world sinks into the worst recession since the 1930s."

Unlike America to this day, in fact, China keeps credit flowing freely for economic growth, though too much of a good thing itself creates problems; notably bubbles that sooner or later burst.

However, Brown explains that China's banks "serve public enterprise and trade" because it controls their operations, unlike America's privatized system serving bankers, not people.

Notably, in fact, Beijing prevented "irresponsible bank speculation and profiteering by keeping a leash on (its) banking sector," as well as focusing on economic growth and job creation, ignored by Washington policy makers.

It's worked for over three decades so why not three more or much longer provided greed doesn't replace good policy, what's headed America down for decades.

As a result, China consumes record volumes of oil, natural gas, coal, copper, iron ore, and other commodities. It's also the world's largest industrial country and producer of gold, rare earth metals, steel, coal, copper, [increasingly toxic] agricultural products, pork, seafood, textiles, electronic products, and more with no end of its growth in sight.

Impressively, China passed Japan in Q II 2010 to become the world's second largest economy. [And a huge discontinuity of Japan getting its largest earthquake, largest tsunami, and the world's largest nuclear disaster all within a week or so.] Heading for number one, perhaps Washington policy makers recall what's believed Napoleon once advised to: "Let China sleep, for when the dragon awakens, she will shake the world." IMF analysts apparently took note.

America's Decline and Fall

In his book titled, "The World in Crisis," historian Gabriel Kolko believes that America's decline "began after the Korean War, was continued in relation to Cuba, and was greatly accelerated in Vietnam - but (GW Bush did) much to exacerbate it further." Obama not only continues Bush policies, he exceeded him with greater recklessness, masquerading as a people's president while waging war on working Americans.

No wonder Kolko thinks US influence is declining everywhere. The world no longer depends on its economic might. Nations like China, India, Brazil and others grow much faster, and after the Soviet Union collapsed, "the absence of identifiable foes has been a disaster, leaving the US aimless. (So) it picks and chooses enemies" globally in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa, and perhaps later China and Russia while other nations increasingly tire of imperial America and its reckless economics counterproductive to their own.

As a result, America's century of dominance is ending. [? well, with 14 trillion GDP and China only 3T currently, as well as the USA source of military and scientific knowledge, as well as one of the only places with ongoing positive demographics, we will see.]


Immanuel Wallerstein agrees, saying it's been fading since the 1970s, accelerating post-9/11. In fact, "the economic, political and military factors that contributed to US hegemony are the same (ones) inexorably produc(ing) the coming US decline."

Chalmers Johnson called it the same dynamic that doomed past empires - "isolation, overstretch, the uniting of local and global forces opposed to imperialism, and in the end bankruptcy," combined with growing authoritarianism and loss of personal freedom.

Calling America's condition dire, he said it's "too late for mere scattered reforms of our government or bloated military to make much difference." History is clear. We can choose democracy and survive or continue as present and perish. Clearly the wrong political, social, military, and economic choices were made, heading US hegemony for the ash heap of history.

Nixon's Council of Economic Advisers chairman, Herb Stein, notably explained, saying, "Things that can't go on forever, won't." Earlier, Johnson said:

The "combination of huge standing armies, almost continuous wars, military Keynesianism, and ruinous military expenses have destroyed our republican structure in favor of an imperial presidency. We are on the cusp of losing our democracy for the sake of keeping our empire."


Moreover, once a nation starts down that path and won't change, its end time is certain. Only its timing is unknown, perhaps coming faster than expected.

America's Dollar Hegemony in Decline

Global plans to replace the dollar metaphorically highlight America's decline, the topic economist Michael Hudson addressed in his June 13, 2009 article titled, "De-Dollarization: Dismantling America's Financial-Military Empire."

For decades, America stayed economically dominant because other nations agreed to a Washington controlled WTO/IMF/World Bank/Bank for International Settlements (the Central Bank of Central Banks in Basel) system, using the dollar as the world's reserve currency.

Other countries, however, now balk.
A June 2009 Yekaterinburg, Russia meeting with top officials of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization (led by China and Russia) took the first step to end dollar supremacy, perhaps replacing it eventually with a single global currency or a basket of major ones.

Today, America remains unchallenged militarily, its economic supremacy, however, weakening as it staggers under growing debt, while nations like China, Brazil, India, Russia and others are rising.

In July, 2009, Russian President Medvedev advocated a supranational currency. In September, the UN Conference on Trade and Development proposed an artificial one to replace the dollar. Other alliances, including nine Latin American countries, support a regional currency. China wants its yuan protected, and Russia plans to begin trading in the ruble and local currencies.

Hudson calls the present system a "sinister dynamic (because) the US payment deficit pumps dollars into foreign economies (that have) little option except to buy US (debt) which the Treasury spends on financing an enormous, hostile (global) military build-up," and its ready-to-unleash-anytime war machine.

Moreover, foreign US Treasury buyers may not only be financing their own endangerment, they're also buying a depreciating asset, what analyst Matthias Chang calls dollar denominated "toilet paper" from a "toilet paper printing press....issu(ing) irredeemable fiat money."

Why else would world demand for gold and silver be strong. They reflect real value, not paper backed solely by the eroding faith and credit of issuing countries. Buyers clearly lack it in America with good reason. As a result, expect further dollar erosion, decline and perhaps crisis if current selling ahead surges.

No wonder other countries seek a new monetary system to avoid funding America's deficit and military. BRIC nations (China, Russia, India and Brazil) took the lead. Others are now following, and the weaker the dollar gets, inevitably they'll be more.

Economist Paul Craig Roberts also believes the dollar's global reserve currency hegemony won't last. Sooner or later wholesale dumping will happen when foreign central banks unload them. As a result, import prices will rise enough to make Wal-Mart shoppers "think they have mistakenly gone into Neiman Marcus."

Domestic prices will also soar "as a growing money supply chases the supply of goods and services still made" domestically. Disruptions will follow. The dollar won't survive. When it goes America's trade deficit can't be financed. Imports will fall sharply. Inflation will rise, and "(p)anic will be the order of the day" because a corporate - government cabal is "strung out on the ecstasy of Empire," and obsessed with destroying the nation's middle class to transfer maximum wealth to America's super-rich already with too much.

A Final Comment

Consider how far America declined and the inevitable consequences. The combination of:

-- military Keynesianism;

-- permanent wars;

-- Washington being corporate occupied territory;

-- banker bailouts;

-- generous handouts to corporate favorites;

-- offshoring the nation's industrial base;

-- neoliberal austerity;

-- class warfare, including against unionism;

-- systemic corruption;

-- increasing repression;

-- sham elections; and
-- democracy in name only,
the best money can buy, made America no longer a model for other nations, the engine of world growth, a fit to live in, or able to prevent its inevitable decline, fall, and replacement by China and perhaps other nations one day.

It's a sad testimony to a two centuries old experiment that failed because absolute power corrupted too many with it wanting more.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.


some dire news:

Weather chief draws flak over plea not to release radiation forecasts

TOKYO, April 29, Kyodo

The chief of the Meteorological Society of Japan has drawn flak from within the academic society over a request for member specialists to refrain from releasing forecasts on the spread of radioactive substances from the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/88604.html

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Week 7: No blog posting during mid-term week

No blog posting during mid-term week. No class sessions either. See syllabus.

The extra credit exam will be uploaded to the Kookmin website this weekend. It is due next time we meet. Print a copy of your answers and bring it to class, after mid-term week.