EPA to Study Natgas Fracking at Five Sites in Four U.S. States: Scientific American
Vizio Readies 8-Inch Tablet - 2011-06-22 12:37:24 | TWICE
Vizio Readies 8-Inch Tablet
By Joseph Palenchar -- TWICE, 6/22/2011
New York - Vizio announced summertime availability of its first tablet, a Wi-Fi model equipped with 8-inch touchscreen and IR blaster to double as a universal remote. The VTAB1008 tablet from Vizio |
Vizio outlined its plans here at the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) Line Show, though it also showed the product and its first smartphone, also Android-based, at January's International CES.
The tablet, due in retail stores nationwide in the summer, features 1GHz processor, 8-inch 1,024 by 768 capacitive touchscreen, built-in GPS, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth connectivity and extended battery lasting up to 10 hours depending on usage, the company said. Other features include 2GB of onboard storage, MicroSD card slot supporting an additional 32GB, HD video playback, micro HDMI output and front-facing camera video chats. Three embedded speakers deliver stereo playback in portrait and landscape mode.
A built-in universal remote control app features codes for 95 percent of remote-controllable devices on the U.S. market, the company said.
Investigation: 3 out of 4 US Nuke Plants Leaking Radiation Into Drinking Water Up To 750 Times Legal Limits
An investigation reveals that 75% of US nuclear plants are leaking radioactive tritium into the environment and US drinking water supplies being detected at levels up to 750 times legal limits.
Leaks of radioactive tritium have been detected from 48 of the 65 nuclear power plants, with 37 of those sites leaking at levels exceeding federal drinking water standards by hundreds of times. The EPA says even exceeding these levels by hundreds of times there is no cause for concern or threat to public health. Then why do we have regulations if exceeding them by hundreds of times is no threat to human health?
It is also reported that the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant here in NJ is leaking radiation directly into the aquifer that feeds the drinking water in surrounding towns. To of Oyster creek is Toms River which known as known locally as “cancer alley” due to the unexplained high rate of cancers in the area.
TPM reports:
AP: U.S. Nuke Sites Leaking Radioactive Form Of Hydrogen
An Associated Press investigation has found that tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, has leaked from three-quarters of U.S. commercial nuclear power sites.
The tritium often leaked into groundwater from “corroded, buried piping,” and in most cases concentrations exceeded the federal drinking water standard. But none of the leaks are known to have reached public water supplies themselves.
Any exposure to radioactivity, no matter how slight, boosts cancer risk, according to the National Academy of Sciences. Federal regulators set a limit for how much tritium is allowed in drinking water. So far, federal and industry officials say, the tritium leaks pose no health threat.But it’s hard to know how far some leaks have traveled into groundwater. Tritium moves through soil quickly, and when it is detected it often indicates the presence of more powerful radioactive isotopes that are often spilled at the same time.
[...]
Press TV reports:
Tritium leaks from US nuclear sites
Radioactive tritium has leaked from at least 48 of 65 sites of commercial nuclear power sites in the United States, investigations have shown.According to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission records, tritium — a radioactive form of hydrogen — has leaked through corroded pipes into the ground and that the number and severity of the leaks are escalating, The Washington Post reported.
Leaks from at least 37 of those facilities contained tritium concentrations which sometimes exceeded the federal drinking water standard at hundreds of times.
At three sites — two in Illinois and one in Minnesota — leaks have contaminated drinking wells near homes, but have not reached levels violating the drinking water standard.
At a fourth site, in New Jersey, tritium has leaked into an aquifer and a discharge canal feeding picturesque Barnegat Bay off the Atlantic Ocean.
There have also been numerous reports of tritium leaks into the surface waters across the US over the past years.
[...]Tritium moves through soil quickly and when detected, it often indicates the presence of more powerful radioactive isotopes that are often spilled at the same time.
Gizmodo Adds:
Nearly 50 U.S. Nuclear Power Plants Are Leaking Radioactive Tritium
Somewhere around 75 percent of U.S. nuclear power plants have been found leaking the radioactive element Tritium into the ground to various extents. Corroded piping buried underground seems to be the main problem, and a problem that can affect groundwater if ignored.
[...]
And despite the fact that some plants have had contaminated groundwater 750 times over the radioactive limit, nuclear energy authorities claim the issue will have no impact on public health.
“The public health and safety impact of this is next to zero,” said Tony Pietrangelo, chief nuclear officer of the industry’s Nuclear Energy Institute. “This is a public confidence issue.”
And while that may be true, I think most of us would still rather not have that stuff moving through the environment. [AP]
Source: Investigation: 3 out of 4 US Nuke Plants Leaking Radiation Into Drinking Water Up To 750 Times Legal Limits ©
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Hypersonic Jet Transport Of The Future To Be Powered By Seaweed
Apparently Western Europe hasn’t fallen out of love with the Concorde. Plans and concept designs of a new hypersonic Mach 4 passenger aircraft were unveiled recently and the projected specifications and overall performance conceptualization was indeed impressive.
Original Story Hypersonic Jet Transport Of The Future To Be Powered By Seawe
How Corporate America came to dominate our discourse
Over the weekend I was re-reading the infamous Powell Memo, written by written in 1971 by former Supreme Court justice Lewis Powell, who at the time was working as a corporate attorney. The memo is in essence a letter to the Chamber of Commerce in which Powell urges the American business community to begin investing more money trying to capture the hearts and minds of Ma and Pa America. You see, back in the early '70s a handsome young buck named Ralph Nader was making life miserable for the American business establishment, particularly the automobile industry. While Nader today is considered a crank by most of the country, at the time he was quite effective, a sort of anti-corporate Andrew Breitbart who loved to stir the pot, make trouble and collect scalps.
At any rate, Powell's memo basically encouraged the business community to take more of an active role in political life. And I don't just mean donating to campaigns -- I mean getting involved in academia and the media to begin influencing public opinion. While it's true that this memo is not the Rosetta Stone of corporate influence that it's made out to be, it is reflective of a general feeling among business elites that they were tired of being pushed around by liberals and leftists and that they were going to start hitting back. This passage is particularly amusing in light of how much corporate power dominates our political landscape today:
[A]s every business executive knows, few elements of American society today have as little influence in government as the American businessman, the corporation, or even the millions of corporate stockholders. If one doubts this, let him undertake the role of 'lobbyist' for the business point of view before Congressional committees. The same situation obtains in the legislative halls of most states and major cities. One does not exaggerate to say that, in terms of political influence with respect to the course of legislation and government action, the American business executive is truly the 'forgotten man.'
Powell is certainly exaggerating the plight of the poor beleaguered business man here, as the business lobby always had a seat at the table even during liberalism's heyday in the 1960s. The difference was, unlike today, the business lobby didn't own the damn table.
One of my favorite scene's in Oliver Stone's 'Nixon' film comes when a group of cigar-chomping right-wing businessmen give Tricky Dick and earful about 'federal price controls on my oil' and about the fact that 'your EPA environmental agency has got its thumb so far up my ass that it's scratching my ear.'
And while this is a work of fiction (and an Oliver Stone work of fiction at that), it's still somewhat thrilling to see Nixon stick up for the EPA in the face of corporate pressure. Where have you gone, Tricky Dick, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you!
The point here is that in the early 1970s, the public at large still thought the putting limits on how much pollution a private firm could emit was actually a good thing. That same decade was when Corporate America began investing more cash into think tanks like Heritage and Cato in order to scrub these inconvenient little ideas out of peoples' heads and convince them that air pollution was just one of the free market's many wonders, along with lead poisoning and E. coli.
But back to the Powell Memo. Toward the end of the memo, Powell provides a list of several principles that Corporate America should be defending as part of its propaganda campaign. Some of what you would expect, but others are still surprising:
We in America already have moved very far indeed toward some aspects of state socialism, as the needs and complexities of a vast urban society require types of regulation and control that were quite unnecessary in earlier times. In some areas, such regulation and control already have seriously impaired the freedom of both business and labor, and indeed of the public generally. But most of the essential freedoms remain: private ownership, private profit, labor unions, collective bargaining, consumer choice, and a market economy in which competition largely determines price, quality and variety of the goods and services provided the consumer.
Labor unions??!! Collective bargaining?!!?!!?!!?! This dude would be considered a Communist by the Tea Party's standards!
Powell then closes with a flourish and recites the most insidious meme embedded within corporate propaganda -- that your right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is directly tied to the right of rich and powerful corporations to do whatever the hell they want:
But whatever the causes of diminishing economic freedom may be, the truth is that freedom as a concept is indivisible. As the experience of the socialist and totalitarian states demonstrates, the contraction and denial of economic freedom is followed inevitably by governmental restrictions on other cherished rights. It is this message, above all others, that must be carried home to the American people.
And tragically for our country, this campaign to influence hearts and minds has been stunningly successful. We no longer protect blue-collar jobs, union membership as a percentage of the workforce is the lowest it's been in decades, and average wages have stalled even as corporate profits have soared. And still, our corporatist ideologues demand more. They want to voucherize Medicare in order to pay for tax cuts for corporations and wealthy individuals. They want to privatize Social Security and shift risk even more toward individuals. They want to end collective bargaining rights for public-sector workers all together.
For our democracy to survive at all, we're going to need a movement that challenges the role of corporate power. Russ Feingold's campaign to overturn the truly horrible Citizens United decision is a good place to start.
#Radiation in Japan: Greenpeace Detected Cobalt-60 and High Radiation "Hot Spots" in Fukushima City in Fukushima
Fukushima City in Fukushima Prefecture is 60 kilometers northwest from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. No part of the city is designated as 'evacuation' zone of any kind (mandatory or planned). It is the 3rd largest city in Fukushima Prefecture with over 290,000 people.
Shukan Gendai, a Japanese weekly magazine, had a feature article in early June (for the June 24 Issue) that described the radiation survey in Fukushima City done by Greenpeace on June 7.
The article says Greenpeace detected cobalt-60 in a park in Fukushima City.
Cobalt-60?? From the RPV??
Very rough, partial translation of the Shukan Gendai (June 24 Issue) article follows:
--------------------------------------------------
Shukan Gendai, a Japanese weekly magazine, had a feature article in early June (for the June 24 Issue) that described the radiation survey in Fukushima City done by Greenpeace on June 7.
The article says Greenpeace detected cobalt-60 in a park in Fukushima City.
Cobalt-60?? From the RPV??
Very rough, partial translation of the Shukan Gendai (June 24 Issue) article follows:
--------------------------------------------------
Fukushima City is in danger
Extremely high radiation detected
Our urgent, special report reveals
More than 10 times the radiation limit. Even cobalt-60 was detected. Children should be evacuated immediately, but the government says nothing, pretending not to know anything
[body of the article]
What some have feared all along is coming true.
'This Fukushima City has become a place where children should not live. The only choice left would be a mass evacuation. But no politician understands that. Or rather, they don't want to know, probably.'
Seiichi Nakate, 50-year-old man who lives in Fukushima City, could barely suppress his anger.
On April 19, the Japanese government suddenly raised the upper limit of the annual radiation exposure for children from 1 millisievert to 20 millisieverts. Mr. Nakate is the head of the organization called 'Fukushima Network to Protect Children from Radiation', which was set up to protest against this barbaric act.
Located 60 kilometers away from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, Fukushima City is not in the evacuation zone designated by the government. However, it is now a known fact that the heavy radiation contamination exists in the northwest direction from the plant, in places like Namie-machi and Iitate-mura. People started to wonder from early on that Fukushima City might be in danger also.
Nakate says, 'Unlike Namie and Iitate where the radiation is high everywhere, Fukushima City has so-called 'hot spots' hidden throughout the city where the radiation spikes up compared to areas surrounding them. But since the government insists 'it's safe', the residents are complacent. That makes the situation even more dangerous.'
The residents do not know that they are not safe - because they 'cannot see' the radiation contamination. Because it can't be seen, the government is simply kicking the can, doing nothing.
Fukushima City is the capital of Fukushima Prefecture, with government offices and headquarters of major businesses. Its population is over 290,000. But the government doesn't do anything.
'If the national government doesn't do anything for us, then we'll have to think and act for ourselves.'
And Mr. Nakate started the network.
On June 7, an urgent survey was done in Fukushima City.
The survey was conducted by Greenpeace, an international non-profit organization for environment. Seven Greenpeace staff came to Fukushima City, responding to Mr. Nakate and his organization.
The survey team started the measurement in a park located at 5-minute driving distance from the Fukushima City Hall.
There is a reason why they [Greenpeace] included the parks in the survey. On April 24, Fukushima Prefecture restricted the use of 5 parks in the prefecture to '1 hour per day' when the radiation exceeding 3.8 microsieverts/hour was detected, which was the national safety limit. Then, the prefectural government removed the restriction on June 6, one day before the Greenpeace survey, saying the later survey showed the radiation within the limit.
'To begin with, 3.8 microsieverts/hour was calculated, based on the high annual radiation exposure limit of 20 millisievert, and it's not appropriate. It isn't just the matter of restricting the use. Parks directly affects the health of children, and should be very carefully monitored', says Greenpeace Japan's Sato.
The survey team went to locations where the high radiation was expected - dirt pile in the corner of a park, water drain behind the public restroom. The radiation measuring equipment was made in Czech Republic, home country of one of the Greenpeace staff members. It costs about 1.2 million yen. It can not only measure the overall radiation level, but it can also identify the nuclides.
The dirt pile measured 6.3 microsieverts/hour, 1.7 times the national guideline. The staff were surprised at the high number. A pile of dead leaves in the corner measured 4.2 microsievert/hour.
Mr. Sato said, 'Contaminated dead leaves should be collected in secure containers and managed for 20, 30 years. Burning them is out of the question, as it only spreads radioactive materials. If these leaves blow in the wind, they will spread contamination.'
More serious numbers were to come. The ground surface with weeds behind the restrooms measured 9.1 microsievert/hour, and the area near the water drain at the restroom entrance measured 12.5 microsieverts/hour.
A local parent who accompanied the Greenpeace staff was surprised.
'Small children are attracted to dirt piles and leaf piles. They also like to play in a water puddle. I was shocked to see the high numbers around leaf piles and water. I don't feel like letting my children play in the park, no matter how safe the national or municipal government say it is.'
Another thing that the survey team paid attention to was the types of nuclides that were detected in the park. They detected cesium-134, cesium-137, and cobalt-60.
Professor Kazuhiko Kudo of Kyushu University (nuclear engineering) says, 'Cobalt-60 does not exist in nature. It has a half-life of 5.3 years. That cobalt-60 was detected in Fukushima City, 60 kilometers from the plant, proves that a certain amount of cobalt-60 was released from the reactor meltdown.'
The survey team stood out in the summer-like heat, with uniforms, long boots, protective masks and the radiation measurement equipment. Men and women from different parts of the world that made up the survey team looked very foreign indeed in the park in a quiet residential neighborhood.
So, while the team was in the park, the residents stayed away. As soon as the survey was done, a young child went to the swing with the mother. They didn't know that there was a 'hot spot' right near by.
Next, we went to Watari Junior High School, located near the park.
That day, they were removing the surface soil from the schoolyard. According to the workers, the soil was being buried in the hole dug in the schoolyard. The perimeter of the schoolyard was covered with blue tarp, because the neighbors complained. Needless to say, tarp cannot completely prevent the radioactive materials from spreading. It looked as if they wanted to hide.
Just when the team was about to do the survey, an elderly man came and started to protest loudly.
'You, why don't you stop already. There are people here who don't want to know the numbers. I say, 'Stop squawking'. I am a doctor, and I think there's no problem living in this neighborhood. For children? There isn't any data that proves the danger, is there?'
Spitting out the words breathlessly, he left.
We cannot criticize the man. He is also being threatened by radiation.
However, it is a reality that the Japanese citizens are underestimating the negative effect on health, because the government has emphasized 'baseless rumors' more than 'negative effect on health'. It is absolutely necessary to recognize the danger for children and pregnant women.
Mr. Nakate did his own measurement before the surface soil removal started at Watari Junior High. The soil around the warehouse near the parking lot measured 360 microsieverts/hour.
This time, the survey team measured the soil after the surface soil removal. It was till 45 microsieverts/hour, about 12 times the limit. It is equivalent to 240 millisieverts per year [?], almost the radiation exposure limit of 250 millisieverts for the workers at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. The Greenpeace staff frowned, put on the protective suits and collected the soil sample.
Mr. Nakate said, as he looked on the work to remove the surface soil from the schoolyard,
'Look. The workers are removing the contaminated soil, and the regular class is being held as usual. What a contradiction, isn't it? This is how the government responds. Haphazard, with no long-term vision. What's most important right now is to evacuate children to safe places.
(The article continues.)
There is one more segment on a private nursery school 200 meters from the junior high school. The article describes how the Greenpeace survey team measured radiation along the road that small children walk on, on the way to the nursery school. 35 microsieverts/hour under the rain gutter. At the nursery school, the principal didn't know what to do with the radioactive soil that had been removed. 'We want the national government to tell us how to deal with the contaminated soil, the playground equipment. We need guidance.'
Toward the end, a mother whose daughter goes to this nursery school says,
'There are many mothers who want radiation measuring equipment. Whether to send children to places with lower radiation, or to continue to live here. I wonder everyday. But looking at the silly exchange between the politicians in the Diet [she is probably referring to the vote of no confidence in which PM Kan conned everyone and stayed on], we will have to leave on our own, if we leave.'
Many readers have wondered why the mothers like her don't simply pick up and leave with their children to safer places. I can tell you one reason. Unless the evacuation is ordered by the government, they don't get compensated for their inconvenience. It's not about money but children's health, many would say. These parents, mostly, know that, but not all of them can afford to do so without assistance.
And this is the government who wants to tax the money that TEPCO has given to people for their suffering because of the plant accident as 'income'.
Return To The Days Of Hoover's Enemy List? FBI Raiding Activists As Terrorists
Back in the days of J. Edgar Hoover running the FBI and Senator Joseph McCarthy accusing all sorts of people of various 'un-American' activities, you ran the risk of being accused of all sorts of things just for disagreeing with the government. It seemed like those days were over, and I'd love to believe those days really are over, but Pickle Monger points us to the unfortunate news that the FBI has been raiding homes of various political activists, claiming that it's part of a terrorism investigation. Many of the targets of the raids seem like unlikely 'terrorists,' as they include peace/anti-war activists and union organizers. Whatever you think of their politics, we should certainly be worried when there's any sense that political viewpoints are getting wrapped up in any claims of a 'terrorism' investigation. It seems like it's so easy to abuse that word to go after anyone who law enforcement doesn't like. You would hope that America would have learned from its past to avoid moves like this, so it's a shame to hear that it may still be ongoing.
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