Tohoku Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster!!!

[Russell]

There was that US navy ship that got in the plume in the direct aftermath, and its crew is now suffering the terrible consequences with their health.

I know, I know, this is a different kind of plume, but still...

[Isle of View]

There was that US navy ship that got in the plume in the direct aftermath, and its crew is now suffering the terrible consequences with their health.

I know, I know, this is a different kind of plume, but still...

More alternative media bollocks.

[Coligny]

Yea, as opposed to your posturing bollocks...
Thanks for dropping by from time to time to empty a bucket of patronizing shit on us...

[Isle of View]

Yea, as opposed to your posturing bollocks...
Thanks for dropping by from time to time to empty a bucket of patronizing shit on us...

My pleasure.

Thanks for being such an easy sitting duck target.

A cursory search of the internet re "Fukushima" shows that ignorance loves company, so you can be happy in the knowledge that you'll never lack for company.

[Russell]

There was that US navy ship that got in the plume in the direct aftermath, and its crew is now suffering the terrible consequences with their health.

I know, I know, this is a different kind of plume, but still...

More alternative media bollocks.

Navy sailors have radiation sickness after Japan rescue

Navy sailor Lindsay Cooper knew something was wrong when billows of metallic-tasting snow began drifting over USS Ronald Reagan.

“I was standing on the flight deck, and we felt this warm gust of air, and, suddenly, it was snowing,” Cooper recalled of the day in March 2011 when she and scores of crewmates watched a sudden storm blow toward them from the tsunami-torn coast of Fukushima, Japan.

The tall 24-year-old with a winning smile didn’t know it then, but the snow was caused by the freezing Pacific air mixing with a plume of radioactive steam from the city’s shattered nuclear reactor.

Now, nearly three years after their deployment on a humanitarian mission to Japan’s ravaged coast, Cooper and scores of her fellow crew members on the aircraft carrier and a half-dozen other support ships are battling cancers, thyroid disease, uterine bleeding and other ailments.

“We joked about it: ‘Hey, it’s radioactive snow!’ ” Cooper recalled. “I took pictures and video.”

But now “my thyroid is so out of whack that I can lose 60 to 70 pounds in one month and then gain it back the next,” said Cooper, fighting tears. “My menstrual cycle lasts for six months at a time, and I cannot get pregnant. It’s ruined me.”

The fallout of those four days spent off the Fukushima coast has been tragic to many of the 5,000 sailors who were there.

At least 70 have been stricken with some form of radiation sickness, and of those, “at least half . . . are suffering from some form of cancer,” their lawyer, Paul Garner, told The Post Saturday.

“We’re seeing leukemia, testicular cancer and unremitting gynecological bleeding requiring transfusions and other intervention,” said Garner, who is representing 51 crew members suing the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the Fukushima Daiichi energy plant.

“Then you have thyroid polyps, other thyroid diseases,” added Garner, who plans to file an amended lawsuit in federal court in San Diego next month that will bring the number of plaintiffs past 70.

Senior Chief Michael Sebourn, a radiation-decontamination officer, was assigned to test the aircraft carrier for radiation.

The levels were incredibly dangerous and at one point, the radiation in the air measured 300 times higher than what was considered safe, Sebourn told The Post.

The former personal trainer has suffered a series of ailments, starting with severe nosebleeds and headaches and continuing with debilitating weakness.

He says he has lost 60 percent of the power in the right side of his body and his limbs have visibly shrunk.

“I’ve had four MRIs, and I’ve been to 20 doctors,” he said. “No one can figure out what is wrong.”

He has since retired from the Navy after 17 years of service.

Even as the Reagan was steaming toward the disaster, power-company officials knew the cloud of steam they were releasing — in order to relieve pressure in the crippled plant — was toxic, the lawsuit argues, a claim that has also been made by the Japanese government.

Tokyo Electric Power also knew that radioactivity was leaking at a rate of 400 tons a day into the North Pacific, according to the lawsuit and Japanese officials.

“We were probably floating in contaminated water without knowing it for a day and a half before we got hit by that plume,” said Cooper, whose career as a third-class petty officer ended five months after the disaster for health reasons.

The toxic seawater was sucked into the ship’s desalinization system, flowing out of its faucets and showers — still radioactive — and into the crew member’s bodies.

“All I drink is water. You stay hydrated on that boat,” said Cooper, who worked up to 18 hours at a time on the flight deck loading supplies onto a steady stream of aid helicopters for four days, all the while drinking out of the two-gallon pouch of water hooked to her gear belt.

By the time the Reagan realized it was contaminated and tried to shift location, the radioactive plume had spread too far to be quickly outrun.

“We have a multimillion-dollar radiation-detection system, but . . . it takes time to be set up and activated,” Cooper said.

“And then we couldn’t go anywhere. Japan didn’t want us in port, Korea didn’t want us, Guam turned us away. We floated in the water for two and a half months,” until Thailand took them in, she said.

All the while crew members had been suffering from excruciating diarrhea.

“People were s- -tting themselves in the hallways,” Cooper recalled.

More

There seem to be medical problems with former crew members, methinks...

[yanpa]

So, have there been any reports, studies, independent confirmations from plausible sources on this? Searching for "USS Ronald Reagan cancer" doesn't exactly bring up the creme-de-la-creme of international journalism or science.

“And then we couldn’t go anywhere. Japan didn’t want us in port, Korea didn’t want us, Guam turned us away. We floated in the water for two and a half months,” until Thailand took them in, she said.

According to this page,

April 19 [2011], USS Ronald Reagan CSG arrived in Fleet Activities Sasebo for a three-day port call.

[Russell]

So, have there been any reports, studies, independent confirmations from plausible sources on this? Searching for "USS Ronald Reagan cancer" doesn't exactly bring up the creme-de-la-creme of international journalism or science.

“And then we couldn’t go anywhere. Japan didn’t want us in port, Korea didn’t want us, Guam turned us away. We floated in the water for two and a half months,” until Thailand took them in, she said.

According to this page,

April 19 [2011], USS Ronald Reagan CSG arrived in Fleet Activities Sasebo for a three-day port call.

I know what you mean.

I just wanted to bring it to attention.

It is always good to have some alternative news sources, even though their context needs to be kept in mind when reading them.

[Coligny]

So, have there been any reports, studies, independent confirmations from plausible sources on this? Searching for "USS Ronald Reagan cancer" doesn't exactly bring up the creme-de-la-creme of international journalism or science.

“And then we couldn’t go anywhere. Japan didn’t want us in port, Korea didn’t want us, Guam turned us away. We floated in the water for two and a half months,” until Thailand took them in, she said.

According to this page,

April 19 [2011], USS Ronald Reagan CSG arrived in Fleet Activities Sasebo for a three-day port call.

You don't seem to realize how slowly some things are dealt with:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_syndrome

But picture of flight deck scrubbing and reports of the R.Reagan reactor monitoring alarm going of because of external levels are not playing in the raainbow farting poneys camp, despite their thresold of concern being still set at nothing less than pogrom.

[Taro Toporific]

Tritium in Fukushima groundwater tops limit for discharge into sea
The Japan Times | May 28, 2014
Water sampled from a well at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has been found to contain levels of radioactive tritium that is higher than the limit for discharging it into the sea, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.
The discovery was the first report of higher-than-the-limit tritium in groundwater at the wells since Tepco began dumping the water into the sea last week.
m0Ar~!

[Coligny]

So they will dilute it before releasing...

One day someone will realize that putting limit in concentration instead of quantity/day/month/year was not a carefully laid plan...

[Russell]

So they will dilute it before releasing...

One day someone will realize that putting limit in concentration instead of quantity/day/month/year was not a carefully laid plan...

Well, the concentration could be so high that even diluting doesn't help.

We are not yet at that point.

Yay

[matsuki]

So...how much concentration of than and other shit is expected to be found in the seafood?

[Coligny]

So they will dilute it before releasing...

One day someone will realize that putting limit in concentration instead of quantity/day/month/year was not a carefully laid plan...

Well, the concentration could be so high that even diluting doesn't help.

We are not yet at that point.

Yay

You really are a man of small expectashiunz...

[matsuki]

The problems have prompted the central government to step in with about $500 million to fund new countermeasures, including a subterranean “ice wall” designed to keep groundwater from flowing into irradiated buildings.

Man-made ice wall...walking dead...Westeros is Japan!!

[Mike Oxlong]

ViceTV guys:

[Samurai_Jerk]

Oh God. Not a VICE "documentary."

[Mike Oxlong]

Oh God. Not a VICE "documentary."

Don't go getting all emo just because Tyrion wasn't in last night's GOT.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Oh God. Not a VICE "documentary."

Don't go getting all emo just because Tyrion wasn't in last night's GOT.

Seriously though. While I find a lot of VICE documentaries entertaining, there's something about them that just rubs me the wrong way. I really liked the one about fucking donkeys in Colombia though.

[Mike Oxlong]

The scopolamine one was wild, and the one about Kroc.

[Coligny]

In Japan, who needs guinea pigs when you got kids...

Rice produced in Fukushima Prefecture has led to no measurable internal exposure to radiation in children, University of Tokyo Prof. Ryugo Hayano said Wednesday.

Hayano made the remark while announcing the results of his team's study of some 1,500 elementary and junior high school children in the Fukushima town of Miharu, about 50 kilometers west of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 power station, where a triple reactor meltdown occurred in March 2011.

http://newsonjapan.com/html/newsdesk/article/108182.php

Dear Japan: THAT'S NOT HOW YOU STUDY THE SAFETY OF FOOD SUPPLY.

[Mike Oxlong]

The Canadian gubbermint recently fired most of their scientists. Lots on da market...

[Samurai_Jerk]

Scaring The Japanese People With Radiation Is Criminal

I realize many journals and on-line publications need sensational headlines to attract readers. It seems necessary in these times of social media and 24-hour news cycles.

But it becomes unethical to push bad science without doing at least a little due diligence. I understand anti-nuke ideology cares little about science and is never held to any technical standard, but in some cases reporting bad science hurts people who need good science to make personal decisions for themselves and their families.

A recent textbook case of this malfeasance is the Fukushima-induced thyroid scare in Japanese children. There is no increase in thyroid health problems in Japanese children living in and around the Prefectures of Fukushima and it is unlikely there ever will be.

[Yokohammer]

Nice one SJ.

Excellent article.

[Isle of View]

Nice one SJ.

Excellent article.

Seconded.

[Russell]

Not so fast.

I always become a little bit suspicious with people who claim to be real scientists.

It is true that the way scientists draw conclusions from data is more rational than non-scientists do. That does not necessarily mean that all scientists agree. Among the general public there is apparently the impression that there is some kind of golden standard of science that gives the final indisputable verdict on all kinds of topics. In reality the same data can give different interpretations by different scientists, all of whom claim to follow the scientific method. What is often different is the assumptions of those scientists and the agenda they have.

When I want to judge the claims made by a scientist, first thing I do is go to his/her web page, and check employer, funding sources, and papers. So, how is this guy doing? He has no web page, so I cannot check his funding and his papers (to be fair he has authored or co-authored scientific papers, according to Google Scholar). He appears to have recently become employed at the Institute for Energy & the Environment (IEE), which appears to be associated with the New Mexico State University. I am a bit puzzled by the guy's mentioning of "peer review" in his blog. True, peer review is an important (but not infallible) basis for judging other scientists' work. But when I go to the web page of this institute and look under the tab peer review, I get the following:

IEE’s WERC has created strong ties with universities, state and federal governmental agencies, and multiple industries. Each entity plays an important role in the peer review activities of the consortium. IEE/WERC has assembled teams comprised of universities, national laboratories, and industrial partners to solve specific technical challenges faced by stakeholders.

As an academic partnership, IEE’s WERC uses open channels of communication with the academic, industrial, and the consulting engineering community to identify and team with appropriate individuals for peer review processes. Focusing its evaluative efforts on technical merit and customer requirements, WERC‘s team efforts meet the needs of each individual client.

This does not appear peer review in the traditional scientific meaning of the word. At the very least, their peer review is not conducted by independent and anonymous scientists.

It gets even worse, when we read further on their "peer review":

Examples:

For Westinghouse, WERC assembled an independent committee to review the final report for the Engineered Alternatives Cost/Benefit Study of WIPP as required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as part of the compliance application for receiving and disposing of transuranic waste.

Transuranic waste consists of low-level and intermediate-level radioactive waste with half-times exceeding 20 years. Westinghouse (a well-known name in the nuclear industry) is apparently a client of this institute, for which they conducted a "peer review". OK, already I start to see a bias.

So, now let's see what the guy has to say on his Forbes blog.

More importantly, you can’t develop thyroid cancer this fast, it takes more than 4 years, and it’s only been 3 years since the tsunami, and most of this screening was even earlier. So what has been measured so far in this screening is the pre-Fukushima baseline.

So far so good. The point he tries to make in his blog is that it is too early to draw any conclusions on the prevalence of thyroid cancer among kids due to the Fukushima accidents, and that it would be criminal to do so. OK, let's give him the benefit of the doubt. However, he also states this:

There is no increase in thyroid health problems in Japanese children living in and around the Prefectures of Fukushima and it is unlikely there ever will be.

So, on the one hand he says it is too early to draw conclusions, and on the other hand he draws the conclusion that it is unlikely there will be a problem in the future. In doing so, he may give people a false sense of security. Talking about "criminal"...

He finishes his blog with an interesting phrase:

Maybe Business Insider needs to follow up on their wanton contribution to this terrorism because, as we all know, radiation fear-mongering is an excellent weapon of terror.

Yep, the guy has now shown the terrorism-card to make his point, and with that he has lost all credibility with me.

[Coligny]

... the Japanese government, for all their other issues, did the right thing in initially evacuating the region, and then preventing anyone from eating produce and drinking milk from that area until I-131 decayed away in the first two months. The Soviets did not do this after Chernobyl ...

Accident in Chernobyl, 26 in the morning, start of evacuation of Pripyat 27 in the afternoon...
I don't waste time debunking SciFi authors, you need suspension of disbelief when you are told a story...

[Russell]

TEPCO speeds up Windows XP update by 3 years

Tokyo Electric Power Co. will replace the Windows XP operating system in its 48,000 personal computers by September 2015, instead of 2018 as originally planned, the company said Monday.

Microsoft Corp of the United States has already ended its support for this operating system.

“We’ll consider whether it is possible to carry out this change even earlier,” a TEPCO official said.

TEPCO said it decided to replace the OS earlier than previously planned because the National Information Security Center (NISC) of the Cabinet Secretariat had repeatedly urged it to do so.

The official also said the utility decided to move up the schedule because “society as a whole was pressing our company to update the OS.”

TEPCO said that although it would continue to use XP-installed PCs for the time being, it would take precautions against cyber-attacks when the PCs are connected to the Internet.

More

You can't make it up.

I feel so safe now!

[matsuki]

Windows XP, connected to the net, Japanese at the helm....how long before Chinese "hackers" start trying to blow these things up?

[Coligny]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/j ... e-pressure

Tl/dr:

Big quake in Tohoku might be upsetting Mt Fuji...

Also, the french are involved in the study... Because... Because we are French, FUCK YOU !

[yanpa]

the scientists carried out a sort of giant echo-scan of the bowels of the Earth

Any excuse to exercise Franco-Japanese weird fetishes...