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Go Arnie Go -The Implications of the Fukushima Accident on the World's Operating Reactors

Arnie Gundersen explains how containment vents were added to the GE Mark 1 BWR as a “band aid” 20 years after the plants built in order to prevent an explosion of the notoriously weak Mark 1 containment system. Obviously the containment vent band aid fix did not work since all three units have lost containment integrity and are leaking radioactivity. Gundersen also discusses seismic design flaws, inadequate evacuation planning, and the taxpayer supported nuclear industry liability fund.

The Implications of the Fukushima Accident on the World’s Operating Reactors from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

fairewinds.com

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This Should be Banned: Found in 80% of Supermarket Foods Posted By Dr. Mercola

Monsanto may soon be allowed to conduct its own environmental studies. Currently, the USDA is responsible for assessing environmental impacts of new GMO crops, but the agency plans to at least temporarily hand over environmental impact reporting responsibilities to the biotech companies behind GMO crops.

If this isn’t the classic example of the fox guarding the henhouse I don’t know what is.

The two-year pilot program will allow the companies to conduct their own environmental assessments, or alternately outsource the work to contractors. The USDA will retain the final say in determining the safety of crops.

According to Fast Company:

“The USDA won’t actually admit that it’s bad at performing its duties — instead, the agency claims that the move will make the environmental reporting process more timely, efficient, and cost-effective … [But if Monsanto] has a vested interest in getting one of its crops deregulated, why wouldn’t it try to fudge the numbers on an environmental review? And why wouldn’t its hired contractors do the same?”

You might think that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) don’t affect you. But in fact, up to 90 percent of all major U.S. grown crops are grown with genetically engineered seed, and can be used in human and animal foods without any safety testing or labeling.

This includes GM corn, soybeans, canola, and sugar beets, which have made their way into approximately 80 percent of current U.S. grocery store items.

If you’re not buying organically produced foods (or growing your own food), then you’re probably eating genetically modified ingredients in most of the processed foods you’re consuming.

The UK Progressive reports:

“Scientific testing has not been done on what effects GMOs may have on humans. What has been shown is that GMO foods contain excessive amounts of certain toxins, the effects of which have not been determined. Genetically modified foods also negatively impact the environment by creating more toxins and potentially leading to the creation of mutated soil bacteria, which may lead to more harm regarding the future of food production.”

Sources:
Fast Company April 25, 2011
UK Progressive March 29, 2011

Dr. Mercola’s Comments:

This latest development is truly the epitome of a Bad Idea.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the agency responsible for assessing the environmental impacts of genetically modified (GM) crops, but they’ve not been very efficient in this regard. So, in an “effort” to make the environmental reporting process “more timely, efficient, and cost-effective,” they’ve decided to create a two-year long pilot program that allows biotech companies like Monsanto to conduct their own environmental assessments.

This decision is an absolute abomination of massive conflicts of interest.

The Fox is Yet Again Allowed to Guard the Hen House…

What possible incentive does Monsanto have to find environmental harm resulting from the crops they seek to get approved? And if they hire contractors to perform the review, what incentive would they have to come up with a negative assessment?

This is particularly pernicious because of all the chemical companies Monsanto is far and away the most egregious in their blatant disregard for values. They have extorted millions of dollars from small famers no differently than New York City Mafia crime bosses. Well, that might be acceptable behavior in organized crime, but it is reprehensible in a multi-billion dollar corporation.

If history has shown us anything, it’s that industries CANNOT police themselves. The end result is always the same—corporate vested interests win every time. This is exactly why we need INDEPENDENT agencies to do safety reviews.

The USDA will get “the final say.” But honestly, how likely is the USDA to decline approval once an environmental assessment claims the crop poses no threat to the environment? If they can’t find the time to do the original assessment, they surely will not find the time to double-check the assessments handed in by Monsanto and other biotech companies.

Another MAJOR consideration is that Tom Vilsack is the Secretary of Agriculture. Vilsack has been a major supporter of Monsanto and is a strong believer in genetically engineered pharmaceutical crops, especially pharmaceutical corn.

This is a set-up that will endanger consumers everywhere, in more ways than one. As Ariel Schwartz writes for Fast Company, “if it wasn’t so dangerous, it would be funny.” For example, we already KNOW that GM crops are causing a variety of environmental problems,

Such as:

Roundup-resistant superweeds, which forces farmers to use ever increasing amounts of pesticides and herbicides
Cross-pollination between GM and non-GM crops that threaten to destroy the organic industry as a whole
Contamination of waterways with Cry1Ab, a specific type of Bt toxin from GM crops
Creation of new pest problems
Roundup herbicide, which is used in increasing amounts of more than 80 percent of all GM crops planted worldwide, has been found to be lethal to frogs and toxic to human placental and embryonic cells
Allowing Monsanto to police itself is an absolute disaster of epic proportions, make no mistake about it. And this makes it all the more important to educate yourself about GM foods, and make every possible effort to avoid them if you want to protect your health, not to mention the health of your children!

Do You Know how Much GM Food You’re Eating?

It’s important to realize that as much as 90-95 percent of the major US-grown crops are genetically engineered, and subsequently used in human- and animal food production without labeling and with no safety testing whatsoever.

These GM crops include:

Corn Canola Alfalfa (New GM crop as of 2011)

Soy Cottonseed Sugar derived from sugar beets
Additionally, the following produce are also commonly GM:

Zucchini
Crookneck squash
Hawaiian papaya
These GM goods are now used as ingredients in approximately 80 percent of all processed foods!

So, unless you’re buying all organic food, or grow your own veggies and raise your own livestock, or at the very least buy all whole foods (even if conventionally grown) and cook everything from scratch, chances are you’re consuming GM foods every single day of the week.

Even more insidious is the fact that anytime you’re buying conventional meat, you’re essentially eating GMO. This is because the vast majority of animal products produced in the US today, which are raised in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), are fed with GM feed (typically GM corn and soy), in addition to being given genetically engineered hormones. Soon CAFO cattle everywhere will also be fed GM alfalfa, which will further drive up the percentage of GM feed these animals consume in total.

This is just one of the reasons why I strongly advise everyone to avoid consuming conventional meats. If you cannot afford to buy all your food organic, then focus on buying organic meats.

Demand for Non-GM Canola on the Rise

According to an Australian ABC News report, demand for ‘sustainable’ canola, meaning non-GM canola, is now so high that the price for this commodity is outpacing the GM variety.

Tom Puddy with CBH, Western Australia’s largest grain handler, is quoted as saying:

“It really comes down to customer preference to have a non-GM product in the food chain. There’s consumers that will demand that, so they’ll pay a premium at a supermarket shelf for particular items that are certified non-GM. ‘The other driver is from the by-product. That’s fed to animals and they don’t want to have a GM by-product in their food chain that’s fed to their animals.”

The extra price is worth it in my opinion. Although safety research is still sorely lacking, the studies that have been made indicate that things do not bode well for us, long-term, if we do not stop genetically altering our food supply.

Follow Your Instincts: GM Foods are NOT Safe

Although the evil GM giants like Monsanto insist that GM foods are no different from conventionally grown varieties, the research in existence begs to differ. Here is just a sampling of the unsavory findings associated with GM foods:

GM peas caused lung damage in mice Offspring of rats fed GM soy showed a five-fold increase in mortality, lower birth weights, and the inability to reproduce
GM potatoes may cause cancer in rats Male mice fed GM soy had damaged young sperm cells
Bacteria in your gut can take up DNA from GM food The embryo offspring of GM soy-fed mice had altered DNA functioning
GM foods lead to significant organ disruptions in rats and mice, specifically the kidney, liver, heart and spleen Several US farmers reported sterility or fertility problems among pigs and cows fed on GM corn varieties
Bt corn caused a wide variety of immune responses in mice, commonly associated with diseases such as arthritis, Lou Gehrig’s disease, osteoporosis, and inflammatory bowel disease Investigators in India have documented fertility problems, abortions, premature births, and other serious health issues, including deaths, among buffaloes fed GM cottonseed products
Just Say No to GMO!

GMOs may be the greatest health disaster in the American diet. (By the way, remember that while fructose is toxic to your body in and of itself, the vast majority of fructose you consume is in the form of high fructose corn syrup, much of which comes from GM corn!)

Within the first nine years of the introduction of GM crops in 1996, multiple chronic illnesses jumped from 7 percent to 13 percent of the population, food allergies doubled in less time, and many other ailments have been on the rise ever since. Millions may already be suffering health problems caused by genetically modified foods and they just don’t know it.

The American Academy of Environmental Medicine has urged doctors to prescribe non-GMO diets for all patients, citing animal studies that show how GMOs cause disorders such as vital organ damage, gastrointestinal and immune system problems, accelerated aging, infertility, and dysfunctional regulation of insulin and cholesterol. Unfortunately, few doctors are paying attention and following this advice…

Again, you simply must take control of your own health, and take it upon yourself to ensure you’re not unwittingly destroying your and your family’s health with every bite.

By Banding Together We CAN DEFEAT GM Foods!

Yes, even though the US government seems hellbent on giving biotech giants like Monsanto free reign to destroy the world, we CAN get GMOs banned from the US.

Europe was able to do it over a decade ago without any government assistance. All they did was educate the consumers, and that was enough pressure on the food industry to stop using GM ingredients.

Most people don’t understand that we have already won the war. These companies KNOW they have a limited time to sell their chemicals and make a huge profit at the expense of your health. They know that eventually labeling will be mandated and when it is, the game is up and they will be defeated as over 90 percent of Americans do not want GMOs.

That does not mean you should be complacent. The sooner you get involved, the sooner we will eliminate these toxic threats. We will require loads of education to be effective, however.We must first educate sufficient amounts of people about what GM foods are! As illustrated in the featured video, many are still completely clueless about genetically modified foods and have no idea that they’re eating them every day.

In a nutshell, if you’re eating CAFO meats and processed foods that are not 100% USDA Organic, you’re eating GMO’s. It’s that simple. The answer is to buy organic, and/or look for foods that are “non-GMO certified” by the Non-GMO Project.

For your convenience, download this Non-GMO Shopping Guide, and share it with everyone you know.

Although GM foods still do not require labeling by law, the campaign for GMO labeling is making progress, thanks to the persistence of Jeffrey Smith and the Institute for Responsible Technology, an organization whose goal is to end the genetic engineering of our food supply and the outdoor release of GM crops. If you like, you can join the fight by signing the petition to President Obama in support of mandatory labeling of GM foods.

By educating the public about the risks of GM foods through a massive education campaign, and by circulating the Non-GMO Shopping Guide so consumers can make healthier non-GMO choices, the Institute’s plan is to generate a tipping point of consumer rejection to make GMOs a thing of the past.

Remember food is a critical part of the equation of “Taking Control of Your Health”, you simply must get it right if you want any real chance of avoiding chronic degenerative disease

For ongoing updates on this cause, please follow our Non-GMO’s page on Facebook.

See more Dr Mercola at mercola.com

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Where Have All the Reptilians Gone? Is It all True Series ? #183

Well, to Wall Street, of course. About 12 years ago, our government started to loosen up the regulations of the brokerage houses, banks and Wall Street in general. Wall Street was allowed with little to no oversight to make weapons of mass destruction in the form of extremely high-risk trading instruments. They caused the destruction of the value of personal property (our homes); in the tune of trillions of dollars were lost in a matter of months. Millions lost their jobs, and as you know, after three years of the great recession, as a whole country, we barely have our heads above water, but one wrong move and we could be under for good.

Now, there is a lot of blame to go around for Democrats and Republicans alike. The government and the private sector all played a role, but a group has to be given the greatest credit for the heist of the millennium. The true redistribution of wealth started only about 12 years, now the top 1% has 90 % of the wealth in America. Many will debate the number, but unfortunately for the middle class and poor, that is probably correct.

So, why do I think the Reptilians are now on Wall Street and have been increasing in numbers over the last 12 years? Because the greed, misery and suffering has increased over this period. Reptilians are beings that feed off human emotions, like suffering, despair and emotional collapse, etc. and the more the better. When Banksters went in front of Congress to be questioned, they sat there unemotional and lied to Congress that they had bet against these CDOs and CDSs, their WMDs against the world.

They created these monsters and reaped huge profits and gave out amazing yearly bonuses, some 100 times the average lifetime wages of a middle-class worker. The Reptilians in Wall Street found the easiest way to feed their needs to see mankind collapse and release more emotional energy than they could ever dream of.

Justice must be served quickly or this will repeat itself because greed is the ultimate addiction. And the Reptilians on Wall Street are the Super Addicts of the Universe; they collect and consume our emotions. And sadly their appetite is growing.

I have included below a recent great article from Rolling Stone, which details what’s going on, on Wall Street- a whole different world occupied by a different species.

Sleep Tight – if you are reading this the World did NOT end @ 6:00pm on 05/21/11 as the man who made 80 million dollars was saying it would. I hope his followers demand all of their money back. Greed knows no limits.

MWiz.
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The People vs. Goldman SachsA Senate committee has laid out the evidence. Now the Justice Department should bring criminal charges

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein tesifies before the Senate in April 2010


By MATT TAIBBI
MAY 11, 2011 9:30 AM ET
They weren’t murderers or anything; they had merely stolen more money than most people can rationally conceive of, from their own customers, in a few blinks of an eye. But then they went one step further. They came to Washington, took an oath before Congress, and lied about it.

Thanks to an extraordinary investigative effort by a Senate subcommittee that unilaterally decided to take up the burden the criminal justice system has repeatedly refused to shoulder, we now know exactly what Goldman Sachs executives like Lloyd Blankfein and Daniel Sparks lied about. We know exactly how they and other top Goldman executives, including David Viniar and Thomas Montag, defrauded their clients. America has been waiting for a case to bring against Wall Street. Here it is, and the evidence has been gift-wrapped and left at the doorstep of federal prosecutors, evidence that doesn’t leave much doubt: Goldman Sachs should stand trial.

This article appears in the May 26, 2011 issue of Rolling Stone. The issue is available now on newsstands and will appear in the online archive May 13.

The great and powerful Oz of Wall Street was not the only target of Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse, the 650-page report just released by the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan, alongside Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. Their unusually scathing bipartisan report also includes case studies of Washington Mutual and Deutsche Bank, providing a panoramic portrait of a bubble era that produced the most destructive crime spree in our history — “a million fraud cases a year” is how one former regulator puts it. But the mountain of evidence collected against Goldman by Levin’s small, 15-desk office of investigators — details of gross, baldfaced fraud delivered up in such quantities as to almost serve as a kind of sarcastic challenge to the curiously impassive Justice Department — stands as the most important symbol of Wall Street’s aristocratic impunity and prosecutorial immunity produced since the crash of 2008.

Photo Gallery: How Goldman top dogs defrauded their clients and lied to Congress

To date, there has been only one successful prosecution of a financial big fish from the mortgage bubble, and that was Lee Farkas, a Florida lender who was just convicted on a smorgasbord of fraud charges and now faces life in prison. But Farkas, sadly, is just an exception proving the rule: Like Bernie Madoff, his comically excessive crime spree (which involved such lunacies as kiting checks to his own bank and selling loans that didn’t exist) was almost completely unconnected to the systematic corruption that led to the crisis. What’s more, many of the earlier criminals in the chain of corruption — from subprime lenders like Countrywide, who herded old ladies and ghetto families into bad loans, to rapacious banks like Washington Mutual, who pawned off fraudulent mortgages on investors — wound up going belly up, sunk by their own greed.

Read Matt Taibbi on Goldman Sachs, the ‘great vampire squid’

But Goldman, as the Levin report makes clear, remains an ascendant company precisely because it used its canny perception of an upcoming disaster (one which it helped create, incidentally) as an opportunity to enrich itself, not only at the expense of clients but ultimately, through the bailouts and the collateral damage of the wrecked economy, at the expense of society. The bank seemed to count on the unwillingness or inability of federal regulators to stop them — and when called to Washington last year to explain their behavior, Goldman executives brazenly misled Congress, apparently confident that their perjury would carry no serious consequences. Thus, while much of the Levin report describes past history, the Goldman section describes an ongoing? crime — a powerful, well-connected firm, with the ear of the president and the Treasury, that appears to have conquered the entire regulatory structure and stands now on the precipice of officially getting away with one of the biggest financial crimes in history.

Read Taibbi’s 2010 piece on how bailed-out banks are recreating the conditions for a crash

Defenders of Goldman have been quick to insist that while the bank may have had a few ethical slips here and there, its only real offense was being too good at making money. We now know, unequivocally, that this is bullshit. Goldman isn’t a pudgy housewife who broke her diet with a few Nilla Wafers between meals — it’s an advanced-stage, 1,100-pound medical emergency who hasn’t left his apartment in six years, and is found by paramedics buried up to his eyes in cupcake wrappers and pizza boxes. If the evidence in the Levin report is ignored, then Goldman will have achieved a kind of corrupt-enterprise nirvana. Caught, but still free: above the law.

Read the full article at rollingstone.com

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Little more – From Diane Camillo

At 1:10 am, a being that was mostly an illuminated silhouette appeared. From this being were stars shooting from it, the stars initially reminded me of when I was a little girl and would play jacks. The stars looked like illuminated silver jacks. the being held 6 tickets, two of them were shorter and wider with black color and yellow and white text, four of them were longer and narrower and yellow with black and white text. The being was handing me the tickets. They did not actually materialize in my hand but I felt them.

Things that me me say, “hummmmm”…

Abundant Blessings,
Diane

“let us know if you have experienced something like this ?”

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Comets to Help Us Explore the Solar System and Possibly Beyond?

May 18, 2011; 1:22 PM ET accuweather.com
A comet, whose center has a changing rotational rate, has been observed for the first time, according to the Planetary Science Institute researcher.
These findings, as well as information gleaned from a recent NASA EPOXI spacecraft flyby of Comet 103P/Hartley 2, are expected to offer new insights as researchers strive to better understand comets and the role they could possibly play in aiding human solar system exploration, said Nalin H. Samarasinha, senior scientist at PSI and lead author of a paper titled “Rotation of Comet 103P/Hartley 2 from Structures in the Coma” that appears in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
“Understanding the makeup of comets has immediate relevance to planetary exploration efforts. Small bodies of the solar system such as asteroids and comets could potentially act as way stations, as well as to supply needed resources, for the human exploration of the solar system,” Samarasinha said. “For this purpose, it is necessary to know the properties and the character of these objects to maximize our investment.”
Another aspect of comets was observed. Information on the makeup of Hartley 2 gleaned from this research and the EPOXI flyby, and similar research on additional comets, could offer clues researchers need to determine the best way to deal with a comet on a collision course with Earth.
“Although extremely rare, comets can collide with Earth. This could cause regional or global damage to the environment and to life on Earth. However, fortunately for the first time, we are on the threshold of our technical know how to mitigate such a hazardous impact,” Samarasinha said. “In order to do that we need to know the material properties of comets. The most appropriate mitigation strategy for a strong rigid body is different from that for a weakly bound agglomerate.”

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Fukushima – One Step Forward and Four Steps Back as Each Unit Challenged by New Problems – Fairewinds Arnie Gundersen

Important Stuff — Important for the whole world.
Gundersen says Fukushima’s gaseous and liquid releases continue unabated. With a meltdown at Unit 1, Unit 4 leaning and facing possible collapse, several units contaminating ground water, and area school children outside the exclusion zone receiving adult occupational radiation doses, the situation continues to worsen. TEPCO needs a cohesive plan and international support to protect against world-wide contamination.

Fukushima – One Step Forward and Four Steps Back as Each Unit Challenged by New Problems from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

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Will the 2012 Survivalists and the Conspiracy Theorists Take the World Down? Is It all True Series ? #182

Some would say it’s a way to make money, to whip up the fear and the wild interest in the world’s end coming in 2012 on 12/21 at 11:11 – of course 11:11 is a whole other conspiracy in itself. There are people building survival shelters around the world paying up to 2 million dollars just on a hunch. If nothing happenings the structures will only be worth a fraction, for these shelters are located in remote regions of the world. Some are reachable only by helicopter or mule train. There is survival food, survival watches, survival guns, and survival protection clothing; blood money to be made from an event that could cause millions to die.

I personally am not concerned, although for Y2K I was well stocked, and I am still eating tuna from 2000. Or is it chicken? It is hard to tell after nearly 12 years. I do think something is going to happen to some but nothing violent or destructive, only something inside of our minds. Of course we will still have earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, volcanoes, droughts, civil unrest and wars; we have had all of these for thousands of years, and we will have them for thousands more.

Inside our minds, a clear choice will be appear–continue your personal course or take a chance and change the world by changing yourself. Release the hatred, the anger and the violence toward our fellow humans. Understand this is not a religious cry; humans come with built-in knowledge knowing right from wrong and compassion from non-compassion. We come with all the tools to be amazing citizens of the universe, but sometimes we just forget.

Now here is the dilemma–if even 1% of the earth’s people start thinking or acting as a collective unit with regards to the 2012 disaster, it could be manifested into reality. So I propose that 2% of the world’s population send out good non-disaster thoughts, that would cancel the negative 1% and leave enough good thoughts to heal the other miseries that exist in the world today.

Sleep tight – remember your thoughts are a very powerful quantum force in the universe, use them for the good of mankind.

MWiz.