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Thursday, March 31, 2011

Radiation Monitoring... Part II

Updates (4/2/2011)

  • UW has published a paper on the magnitude of airborne fission products arriving from Fukushima (1)
  • UC Berkeley Nuclear engineering department is now testing rain water and commercial milk supplies (1,2)
  • Japan has apparently communicated to the DOE that two reactors have suffered partial meltdowns (1)
  • There is discussion of localized and intermittent criticality inside the damaged reactors (1)
  • "Film is Truth" in Bellingham, WA has in its catalog an informative, and touching 2007 film: 
    Heavy Water

    A film for Chernobyl
    Directed by David Bickerstaff and Phil Grabsky

Friday, March 25, 2011

Coal Trains in Bellingham (and South Fork!) Part II

Below are just some of the latest news items on "Coal Trains in Whatcom County". The project has been 'fast tracked'. For public access to project information, you must register. Sorry campers, I do not have coherent thoughts on this issue yet. I have highlighted in red selected 'must read' sites.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Radiation Monitoring...

I have much I want to say about energy production and risk, but I don't have the time to say it all this week. It should be enough to say that the state of Washington and Northern Puget Sound have good reason to talk about BP's disastrous gulf oil spill and Japan's (and GE's) disastrous nuclear calamity and our new/old "War on Libya".

But for today, I am just presenting the statistical data I have gathered monitoring radiation in my office since March 15. Note that since I gather irregular periods, have the monitor located in my network closet, am not a physicist, have multiple layers of HVAC filtration, using a PC based Geiger counter, probably have lots of radon in my basement, etc...

Saturday, March 19, 2011

"The system works...it works!"

"Let me try to explain to you something that unfortunately people do not understand. These plants are designed for the possibility of an accident. Every conceivable thing that could go wrong is taken into consideration...The system works...it works. There was no accident." 
Jack Lemmon to Jane Fonda in "The China Syndrome" now streaming (as of March 18, 2011) on NetFlix.com 

Image From Digital Globe
http://www.digitalglobe.com/downloads/featured_images/japan_earthquaketsu_fukushima_daiichi_march18_2011_dg.jpg

This is the Union of Concerned Scientists report on nuclear safety in 2010. 
 

Friday, March 11, 2011

"...Russia has the best engineers in the world..."

Below is select dialogue as printed by the White House yesterday between Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and American Vice President Joseph Biden in Moscow.  Why the the White House printed this select translation snippet I am not quite clear. Please read with me:

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

What would a Marxist Revolution look like in the United States?

"This ruthless operation to liquidate the inglorious inheritance of the Sun King was carried out quickly and efficiently in the course of 1716 by a secret committee known as the Visa. At the same time the law courts brought to trial about 8,000 persons who had been involved  in some ways with the finances of the late king's reign: over half of them were convicted and either fined or condemned (to death, prison or the galleys) for fraud and malversation."

from The Emergence of Modern Finance in Europe 1550 -1730 by Geoffrey Parker as quoted  in
The Fontana Economic History of Europe "The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries"  Editor Carlo M. Cipolla, @1974

"America is not broke...The country is awash in wealth and cash. Its just that its not in your hands. It has been transferred in the greatest heist in history from the workers and consumers to the banks and portfolios of the uber rich. Right now... four hundred obscenely wealthy individuals...now have more cash, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined...For us to admit that we have let a small group of men abscond...with the bulk of the wealth that runs our economy, would mean that we would have to accept the humiliation that we have surrendered our precious democracy to the monied elite..."

Michael Moore in Madison, Wisconsin, March 5, 2011